stabilizing water...

Today we had our men's accountability group meeting at my place, and my friend Ellery gave a wonderful summary of my tank: "totally out of control, huh?". :-) It's good to have male friends isn't it? :-D They always tell you the truth! ;-)

Anyway, he is 100% right, the abundance of hair algae plus valonias makes it very clear this tank is still a work in progress.

I discovered recently that my water's mineral properties were a little off.... and part of it due to my newly mixed seawater being somewhat low in Ca, Alk and Mg. On 9/Oct I had these parameters in the tank water:
- Alk=5.6dKH, low
- Ca=350ppm, low
- Mg=875ppm, very low

So I started dosing Ca and Alk buffers and this week also Mg buffer following advice by Sk8r from ReefCentral regarding the importance of Mg. My past experience is that Mg is the hardest to raise.

Right now my parameters are (just measured):
- Alk=12.3dKH, high
- Ca=350, low
- Mg=875, very low

I'm not sure why Ca didn't raise but I suspect it's because Mg is too low. So I'll focus on adding Mg buffer for a while and re-measure the three in a few days.

I'm also considering adding a little Mg and Ca buffer to my new SW used in the water changer...

Snorkeler

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