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Originally Posted by reeferaddict
.... I don't understand what the conflicting advice is here....
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Hey Jim. How’s it goin’?
Okay. Well…I’m not sure how to answer this without making a total fool of myself. I do not claim to have a chemically inclined mind and quite honestly find that part of the hobby the most difficult to grasp and consequently the least interesting. I prefer the biological aspect. (I dropped out of Chem 11 after two days). I suppose I may have jumped into this thread a little too hastily, as I have been stagnant and despondent with the hobby for a spell due to space logistics, and need to re-educate myself about some aspects of it. ( Read: I’m not sure that I know what the hell I’m talking about when it comes to chemistry).
The short answer is the conflicting advice is the 325 vs. 350 ppm Ca. The reason for the conflicting advice is…… simple maintenance vs. actual growth.
A bit of history…. (and I hope I’m not hijacking this thread as that is not my intent)….I was in the LFS the other day (one guess only as to which one) chinwaggin’ with an employee (one guess only as to who). I was in need of a new Mg test kit as the one I had was dead. I forget how the conversation went, but it basically led to me being told that the LFS’ tanks were basically at 325 ppm Ca and that Mg wasn’t really a concern in those tanks as it was generally a given that they are always at least 1150-1200 ppm. Now, one thing that easily escapes me, and is becoming increasingly more apparent when consulting this source for advice, is that this source is a retailer, not a hobbyist (per se). So the short and dirty is that the LFS I speak of is concerned simply with maintaining the organisms while the average hobbyist is looking for growth. Hence the conflicting advice. While an LFS’ advice may be well intended, it’s not necessarily accurate for the hobbyist. So that takes care of the Ca part. The Mg part.....well, I walked out of that store without buying a new Mg kit, not so much because the LFS doesn't test for Mg, but rather, I recalled that when I was first reading up on the hobby 2 years ago, none of the reference books that I purchased and read hardly mentioned Mg at all, let alone suggested testing for it. The only reason I did start testing for it was out of curiousity and that lead to dosing and hitting a target parameter due to "unsatisfactory" results.
Hope this answers your question......?
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