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Have you checked your parameters lately?


Jesse
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Not as well as Randy Holmes Farley can!  This is one of several awesome articles he has written on aquarium chemistry. 
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2003/10/chemistry

Ok I read the article. Helpful but have to admit a lot of it was way over my head. Can you dumb down for me what the following means: magnesium serves to prevent excessive precipitation of calcium carbonate.


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My understanding is that magnesium binds to the calcium carbonate crystal which keeps It from growing. This allows the concentration to be higher in our aquariums. Basically if you don't have enough magnesium you will not be able to keep the alk and calcium up at the levels you desire. If magnesium didn't stop the formation of the calcium carbonate crystal it would grow enough to precipitate out of solution. I hope that makes sense. 

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My understanding is that magnesium binds to the calcium carbonate crystal which keeps It from growing. This allows the concentration to be higher in our aquariums. Basically if you don't have enough magnesium you will not be able to keep the alk and calcium up at the levels you desire. If magnesium didn't stop the formation of the calcium carbonate crystal it would grow enough to precipitate out of solution. I hope that makes sense. 

Got it!! Thanks so much!


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I would like to see my Alk a little lower and Na a little higher, but still new and happy with stability. Winning the Diatom war with regular water changes. Any thoughts on Na/PO4 balance. Haven't been able to get any Nitrate reading after cycled.

Alk 9.4

Cal- 450

Mag- 1200

pH- 8.2

Amo-0

Ni-0

Na-0

PO4- .1

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21 hours ago, Flounder said:

I would like to see my Alk a little lower and Na a little higher, but still new and happy with stability. Winning the Diatom war with regular water changes. Any thoughts on Na/PO4 balance. Haven't been able to get any Nitrate reading after cycled.

Alk 9.4

Cal- 450

Mag- 1200

pH- 8.2

Amo-0

Ni-0

Na-0

PO4- .1

Looks good. What are you using to test nitrates? Po4 is fine by my standards. 

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5 hours ago, crimsonvice said:

Looks good. What are you using to test nitrates? Po4 is fine by my standards. 

I am using Saliferts test kit. I know there is something, but I don't see enough algae growth to eat up everything. From my understanding Diatoms don't use up Nitrates.

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