Randy Holmes-Farley
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Reef Chemistry Question of the Day #8
Assume that you have a coral reef aquarium that has almost perfect water chemistry. It matches natural seawater in every possible way, except you've discovered that your magnesium test kit was off, and that magnesium is actually 100 ppm too low.
You know from years of aquarium husbandry that there are a variety of ways to boost magnesium, and that some of those will mess with your otherwise perfect water chemistry more than others.
Rank order the following methods from the one that least changes the water chemistry to the one that changes it the most. The changes should be compared and ranked on the basis of how you think the aquarium organisms will be impacted by the changes. For example, you might believe that a doubling of calcium would have more impact than a doubling of strontium, so if you thought those would happen, you'd rank the calcium change as a bigger disruption of your perfect chemistry.
The methods are:
A. Adding magnesium chloride hexahydrate to boost magnesium by 100 ppm.
B. Adding magnesium sulfate heptahydrate to boost magnesium by 100 ppm.
C. Adding 10 parts by volume of magnesium chloride hexahydrate and 1 part by volume magnesium sulfate heptahydrate to boost magnesium by 100 ppm.
D. Adding dolomite to your calcium carbonate/carbon dioxide reactor and running it until magnesium is boosted by 100 ppm
The answer should look something like:
W<X<Y<Z, with Z being the most disruptive to water chemistry
Good luck!
Assume that you have a coral reef aquarium that has almost perfect water chemistry. It matches natural seawater in every possible way, except you've discovered that your magnesium test kit was off, and that magnesium is actually 100 ppm too low.
You know from years of aquarium husbandry that there are a variety of ways to boost magnesium, and that some of those will mess with your otherwise perfect water chemistry more than others.
Rank order the following methods from the one that least changes the water chemistry to the one that changes it the most. The changes should be compared and ranked on the basis of how you think the aquarium organisms will be impacted by the changes. For example, you might believe that a doubling of calcium would have more impact than a doubling of strontium, so if you thought those would happen, you'd rank the calcium change as a bigger disruption of your perfect chemistry.
The methods are:
A. Adding magnesium chloride hexahydrate to boost magnesium by 100 ppm.
B. Adding magnesium sulfate heptahydrate to boost magnesium by 100 ppm.
C. Adding 10 parts by volume of magnesium chloride hexahydrate and 1 part by volume magnesium sulfate heptahydrate to boost magnesium by 100 ppm.
D. Adding dolomite to your calcium carbonate/carbon dioxide reactor and running it until magnesium is boosted by 100 ppm
The answer should look something like:
W<X<Y<Z, with Z being the most disruptive to water chemistry
Good luck!
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