How are my tank levels?

[yetti]

Tank facts:

30g
Fluval 304 running carbon only
Coralife skimmer
5 gal fuge

Mixed reef with softies, SPS and LPS.
Cleaner shrimp
two Percs
Crocea Clam
Few cleaner crew

Temp - 81
pH - 8.3
Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - <5
Phosphates - .1
Salinity - 1.026
Alk - 4
Calcium - 400
Magnesium - 1600

 

[reverendmaynard]

mag looks high (1300)
phosphates are borderline (<.03)
alk is good as long as that's meq

Everything else looks great.

 

[yetti]

Thanks..

Yes, that is meq for the Alk...

How can I bring down the Mag? It's always up there? I don't dose anything, so what might cause that to be so elevated? I use IO and do 10% water change every week or two weeks.

 

[simion3]

Looks good. How is everything in the tank doing? For alkalinity is that 4 dKH or 4 meq/L, I assume your measuring it in meq/L.

 

[reverendmaynard]

I don't know. Water changes, I guess. I would suspect testing noise though, since IO is not known for high mag. You don't dose anything?

 

[yetti]

Yeah...found the culprit tonight....I borrowed my friend's Mg test kit....1300....so it looks like a bad test kit

 

[reverendmaynard]

Good job. The first thing to do when a test doesn't seem to make sense is test again. Who knows how many people have gone crazy trying to fix a "problem" that's really just a bad test.