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Small footprint until you realize those seven different reagent bottles gotta go somehwere!

It might also mean that they've all been scavenged by amphipods or other predators.

I once had the opposite problem years ago. I had a batch of IO with really high Mg. I forget the exact number, but it was something like 2000-2500 PPM. I had just gotten a new Salifert Mg kit at the same time this happened, so I complained to BRS about my bad test kit, and they sent me...

Same here. White food-grade Brute containers always got that smell if I let mixed up water sit in it for a while with the lid on. Never had any issues, other than that smell. If I kept it aerated, the smell wouldn't happen. This was using Instant Ocean.

Including the starting a support ticket part?

Seriously, I always just used my fingers and took my time.

Nice!

I was thinking it would need a styrofoam raft or something like that.

Back when I was developing the Trident prototype (my "Alkalinity Monitor"), and I was testing for Alk only every 10 minutes 24/7, I was dosing alk and Ca staggered in tiny increments all day long. This caused a really predictable sawtooth wave that lagged behind my photoperiod by about an hour...

Wow. That's a lot of trust in the refractometer. So, you must be calibrating it with a 35 PPT standard before every use, right?

I always consistently mixed a fixed volume of salt mix with a fixed volume of water, and got consistent results that way. It sounds like you guys are mixing arbitrary amounts of salt and water until your refractometer gives you the number you want? Am I reading this correctly?

FWIW, the Trident's combined Ca + Mg, when converted to moles instead of PPM, tracks tank salinity very nicely, unless something changes to dramatically change either Ca or Mg or both.

You should open a ticket with Neptune Support. Make sure you tell them you're using ABC Reagents.

Yes. The basic issue here is that some of the "calcium carbonate" that makes up the skeletons of calcifying animals is really magnesium carbonate, so the alk:calcium ratio being consumed in skeleton formation is greater than a 1:1 ratio. Coralline tends to include more magnesium as a fraction...

O2 has no effect on pH.

A 1000 mL Class A volumetric flask I bought several years ago for $18. Hands, down, the best purchase I ever made for my reefkeeping experience. I've made up literally hundreds of liters of various solutions (including lots and lots and lots of solutions while developing the Trident) using it...

I've had the exact opposite experience, personally. Salifert nitrate test has always been very easy for me to read, and I'm able to get consistent results. I just rest the vial on the card (high range) or hold the card right up against the side of the vial (low range) with diffuse sunlight...

Salifert nitrate test kit for the win!

That alkalinity would be closely monitored was just an assumption from my perspective, but maybe that's just me. ;)

Not sure which Ca test kit you are using, but you should be able to refill the syringe and keep titrating until you get an endpoint. The result for the extra amount needed to get to the endpoint can be added to the 500 from the initial syringe to find the real value. It probably won't be that...