Fighting to keep magnesium levels up.

[da5speed]

Tanks been running for around 10 months now. Mixes reef. I didn't start doing till around 4 months ago when I was adding some starter corals.
Dkh 7. Drops almost 1 dkh daily
Cal 380 dropping 10 ppm daily
Mag 1140 10 ppm daily.
Temp 78
Salinity 1.024
Will say I have not done a water change in 4 months. 120 gal tank.with 0 coralaline algae.

 

[mcgyvr]

Bump that mag up to around 1300ppm and see how it goes from there..
Dose as needed to keep it stable..

 

[Akram]

Oxygen levels may drop your alk and your ph as well, open the window a bit. Try different alk test. But in most cases alk gets used up fast that’s normal. Just dose the 3 elements and test often

 

[McPuff]

Definitely raise the Mag... having low Mag also means your Calcium level can't go high enough (420-ish). Plus, it can help to keep algae growth lower, provided you have nutrients under control.

I probably dose Mag once per month (if that) and am still able to maintain it around 1450 or so.

 

[hkgar]

Low Mag will cause ca and alk to participate out leaving residue on pump impellers and elsewhere

 

[da5speed]

Been using Seachem mag adv and have gone through 40 bucks of magnesium in the last 2 months on a 120 gal tank. I see the epsom salt any brand better then others. Just not Scented?

 

[bertoni]

You could look into bulk magnesium chloride or use epsom salt, or a mix. Magnesium chloride is a bit better for ionic balance, but you could just try the epsom salt for a while.

How many data points on magnesium consumption do you have? How much is going into the tank per day in terms of volume?

 

[da5speed]

You could look into bulk magnesium chloride or use epsom salt, or a mix. Magnesium chloride is a bit better for ionic balance, but you could just try the epsom salt for a while.

How many data points on magnesium consumption do you have? How much is going into the tank per day in terms of volume?

I does 25ppm a day. Was manual dosing for the first 2 months so I would say it was never consistent in trying to bring up the levels. The last 2 weeks I started dosing via dosing machine I make 25 ppm per day distributed every other hour. I dosed 100ppm over the last 10 days and my levels didn't increase at all they stayed at 1160.
When I make my mix I'm mixing 50 teaspoons of Seachem to 1500 ml of ro water. Which is only a 2 day batch at 25ppm daily I need to increase my container size or make my mixes stronger so I can get more then 2 days without having to mix again. Full family and work load and trying to get the levels to where they should has not been working out. Thought I would have had my dosing pumps dialed in over the last 7weeks.

 

[bertoni]

I guess I'd just look into the DIY chemicals. They are a lot cheaper.

 

[McPuff]

Buy the 2-part Mg from BRS. You'll get a LOT of powder and it's not very expensive. It does take a lot of solution to effectively raise the Mg initially. After that it shouldn't take a ton to keep it there. Another option is to add Mg pellets to your calcium reactor (once you get one!).

 

[da5speed]

What is the max ppm I should dose a day. I was only raising it 25 ppm daily because that’s what Seachem suggests. But on the dosing calculator it says don’t exceed 100ppm a day.

 

[hkgar]

I would dose enough to raise the level about 50 ppm/day + loss, so with a loss of 10 I would dose 60, but there is very little if any impact with high levels of dosing Mag.

 

[hkgar]

Here is a helpful dosing guide
http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

 

[bertoni]

100 ppm probably is safe enough, but 50 ppm for starters would be a good idea if you aren't very sure about the exact water volume of your system.

 

[Im14abeer]

It does take a lot of supplement to raise Mg, because it is present in seawater at about 3 times the concentration of Ca. But, if your dosing seems way out of line, especially in relation to your Ca/alk dosing, check against another test kit. Anecdotely, I started getting suspicious after fighting to keep my Mg up and ended up being over 1500 when I double checked. I've been waiting months for it to come down. Thankfully, neither raising Mg quickly, nor having high Mg has hurt anything that I can tell.

 

[da5speed]

Thanks guys I ordered some epson salt to raise the mag up. I’ll try 50-60 ppm a day to reach 1350. Then I’ll retest to get my new daily dose dialed in to maintain 1350. With esv mag dose Also then I’ll work the calcium up to around 420.

 

[Uncle99]

It does take a lot of supplement to raise Mg, because it is present in seawater at about 3 times the concentration of Ca. But, if your dosing seems way out of line, especially in relation to your Ca/alk dosing, check against another test kit. Anecdotely, I started getting suspicious after fighting to keep my Mg up and ended up being over 1500 when I double checked. I've been waiting months for it to come down. Thankfully, neither raising Mg quickly, nor having high Mg has hurt anything that I can tell.

+1 on the retest thinking...Whenever it seems impossible to raise to required levels.....make sure your test is giving you the correct answer....double check

Always get MG right and stable first, then work on Alk and CA

 

[da5speed]

Up 1230 now dosing 120ppm over the next 3 days to see if it stables out. Should I be concerned with my salinity levels increasing due to dosing mag?

 

[bertoni]

The salinity level will increase some, but not that much. I'd watch the level, but I don't think you'll see a measurable difference.

I agree that double-checking the test kit might be useful.

 

[da5speed]

Just reach my goal of 1350 last night now will work on dialing in the dosing