Dosing Magnesium
- Thread starter singold
- Start date
mutateddogbone
New member
an increase in MG will allow Ca and ALK to saturate more in the reef water without precipitating out
singold
New member
"an increase in MG will allow Ca and ALK to saturate more in the reef water without precipitating out" --mutateddogbone
Correct, was trying to bring Manesium up for this purpose. But, was wondering while I do focus on bringing up Magnesium level via MAG supplementation/booster additive, if this in itself will have any effect on lowering or increasing current ALK & CAL levels by me doing this?
Correct, was trying to bring Manesium up for this purpose. But, was wondering while I do focus on bringing up Magnesium level via MAG supplementation/booster additive, if this in itself will have any effect on lowering or increasing current ALK & CAL levels by me doing this?
will16
New member
I have no science to back this up... only in my experience. Twice I have raised my mg to elevated levels to fight bryopsis, and both times, when I crossed the 1500-1600 level, alk took a nose dive. Don't know if it was coincidence or not but for a year my alk has been very stable. When passing those mg levels, I dropped 1 dkh. Have never had a swing like that before. Just my experience.
mmedeiros2
New member
See what you can get out of this link. There is a lot of onfo here.
Basiclly, mag. will bond with carbonate and not allow calcium to bond with the carbonate causing calcium carbonate. When calcium bonds with carbonate, the amount of calcium and the amount of carbonate drops because they change properties becoming calcium carbonate instead of carbonate and calcium by themselfs. If carbonate drops there will be less ph buffering. If mag. is raised, then the carbonate is capable of being higher, thus higher ph buffering. And also the calcium will be able to be raised higher because it will not be bonding with the carbonate. If the calcium is raised too high, I think the alk. could drop due to precipitation.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php
Basiclly, mag. will bond with carbonate and not allow calcium to bond with the carbonate causing calcium carbonate. When calcium bonds with carbonate, the amount of calcium and the amount of carbonate drops because they change properties becoming calcium carbonate instead of carbonate and calcium by themselfs. If carbonate drops there will be less ph buffering. If mag. is raised, then the carbonate is capable of being higher, thus higher ph buffering. And also the calcium will be able to be raised higher because it will not be bonding with the carbonate. If the calcium is raised too high, I think the alk. could drop due to precipitation.
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php
basically, get your mg level to 3x what you want your calcium level to be. Ie, if you want your calcium level to be 420, set your mg at 1260 or thereaouts. OR A LITTLE HIGHER---because as mg gets slowly depleted, your cal will drop in that same proportion, and alk will go with it. MG is the regulator, setting the level you want for cal, and alk s/b about 8.3-9.3. Dripping kalk (using kalk powder in your autotopoff) is the easiest way to handle this. Once the levels are set, drip kalk and keep your slowly-moving mg up, and you're good for a month of no problems, maybe 3 months as long as you supplement mg and don't let the kalk run out.
singold
New member
Thanks for replies. My parameters:
ALK --- 7
Cal --- 380
Mag --- 1380
Has been this way for a while now, will bring ALK to 10-11 then will drop back to 6-7 within a few weeks. Read the article and since Mg is at suitable level, why would ALK kep dropping. Also last time I checked water when ALK was low, PH was low at 7.6, so according to thread http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php, should allow for even more calcium carbonate absorption thus avoidance of precipitation. What else can cause ALK to drop in short period of time?
ALK --- 7
Cal --- 380
Mag --- 1380
Has been this way for a while now, will bring ALK to 10-11 then will drop back to 6-7 within a few weeks. Read the article and since Mg is at suitable level, why would ALK kep dropping. Also last time I checked water when ALK was low, PH was low at 7.6, so according to thread http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php, should allow for even more calcium carbonate absorption thus avoidance of precipitation. What else can cause ALK to drop in short period of time?
