When I was first approached about testing the Maglev Mixer by Optics Tech, honestly my first thought was that this is probably a silly little unnecessary accessory. But since it’s small and probably couldn’t hurt my water test, I decided to take it for a maglev spin.
To my surprise this little gizmo actually did kind of streamline the water tests that reefers perform most often, notably Calcium, Alkalinity and Magnesium. For these titration tests, being able to dispense the solution without having to swirl it in the other hand actually made it much easier to concentrate on when the color changed.
No doubt the complete mixing provided by this tiny magnetic stirrer really helped to make the color much more pronounced and immediate, especially compared to swirling it with my non-dominant hand. Clearly the Maglev Mixer could be a great help to reefers with challenges to fine motor control of their hands, but the more discrete color change actually helped an old salt like myself recognize when the titration was actually complete.
Unfortunately, I’m still trying to find out how much the Maglev Mixer actually costs and where to get it. If there’s one potentially fatal flaw to this little mixer it’s the miniature stirrer bar which is barely 1/4 inch or 3mm long, just a touch bigger than a grain of rice, which is just begging to be lost.
The Maglev Mixer really should come with at least three of these tiny mixing magnets and if it can come in at $30 or less, or even $20, it could make a worthwhile addition to help reefers take better measurements of the most important reef aquarium parameters.
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