What do you find hardest to maintain with your aquarium?

Never seen one.

Would need about 5 days a year in PNW, if that.

 

The one that would top the list if it was there HAS to be Bank Account!
but for me the only one on the list is nitrates, but i dont think about it and it might go away

 

Alkalinity as my calcium and pH values are usually on the high side! Between that and maintain the same livestock in my tank as I am always going out and adding another addition to my reef clan!!! hahaha

 

i know that water changes and topoffs are so trivial and small in relation to the options, but whenever i could keep the water at the right level, and weekly water changes, i never had any noticable problems... but then, i only tested the basic parameters (temp, ph, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, SG)

 

Mg for me, still trying to get a feel for consumption so I could just add a certain amount every week or so.

 

Definately pH. While I know that borate is a buffering agent found in NSW and added by many salt manufacturers, I've never heard of anyone buying the stuff from the laundry isle and adding it to their tank. Tangster, any links to this one?

I also wouldn't trust washing soda as there are no purity requirements for laundry products. I use baking soda, baked in the oven to drive off CO2 instead since it must be food grade to make the shelves.

 

All you are buying in any buffer is just these 3 simple natural ingredients mixed for you and at a hell of mark up. Laundry booster is just sodium carbonates and they will raise the P.H and only the P.H . Unlike Bicarbonate soda that will tweak the hardness of the water and the borate is just that borate all natural earth elements ..

No links but I'm sure there is some info about it out there .. All I know is we where keeping marine tanks and reefs long before the Sea Chems and Kent's and god only knows who else out there came along to separate you from your money.. By mixing the three elements and putting them in a plastic jar. As for purity ?? Its is what it is fancy dirt elements . Its all mined and cleaned and graded read the labels EPA and FDA controls all these types of elements for human consumption and use. It will say 100% pure sodium carbonates or sodium bicarbonates and borate's .

I my self have always mixed my own buffers and mixed most elements myself and If I started to tell you how to mix your on salt you'd never use it and it is what became I/O salts formula back in the early 60's its been tweaked and refined over the yrs but what hasn't . I can tell you where to buy my mixture in a jar with a label and its half the price of the others sold in that LFS and its selling for just 500% mark up and all say it makes their corals and inverts and Coraline's go just fine better then several major brands setting on the shelf beside it.

 

we have a friend that had heat issues I wired a 20 amp chiller controller to cut is room window unit one inplace of a chiller that receptical is the only one controled by the controller . tank get 79 poof the A/C kicks on tank gets to 78 the a/c goes off.

 

Actually, both sodium carbonate and sodium bicarbonate will increase hardness (alkalinity) in solution. The only significant difference in the two is that sodium carbonate is mixed with water and carbon dioxide (2Na2CO3 = Na2CO3 + CO2 + H2O) to form baking soda (bicarbonate). Baking sodium bicarbonate just drives the off water and CO2 which leaves sodium carbonate behind. My concern with buying laundry grade sodium carbonate is the potential for added surfactants (I tried mixing Arm & Hammer washing soda with RO/DI and it formed a foam on the surface that hung around for about 10 minutes.). I've never seen this with baked baking soda (now sodium carbonate) so decided it was worth the hour in the oven to stick with it.

I try to use food or lab grade products when available, but also use Dow and Mag Flakes for Ca and Mg supplements, so it's not a steadfast rule. I'm willing to check out the use of laundry borate (borax?) and would be very interested in any information you have on preparation and dosage.

I'm all about mixing my own supplements and learned long ago that not only are the big label preparations more expensive, there's no purity standards on what they sell either.

 

very cool , ive decided to move the tank near the aircon for the summer .
By the way geez tangster i would love that buffer recipe!!