Mag Stability

[BuckeyeTodd]

How important to SPS success is it? I dose kalk, which doesn't help the mag. Therefore I've been buffering my water change water(I do water change every two weeks). So is keeping a level of 1300-1500, or do the swings do harm when I do a waterchange?

 

[Bananafish]

There's a lot more to it, and you should read some articles in Reef Keeping, but magnesium affects the way animals can absorb and use calcium. Generally, magnesium should be about 3x the calcium. When you do water changes, you affect the chemistry by diluting some things and adding others, but you should try to keep the system relatively stable.

 

[dzhuo]

Judging by those that battle bryopsis using mag, it seems like the short term affect is very limited but why are you having such a huge swings? Could this be a testing error?

 

[Bananafish]

DZ, my guess is too much kalk is forcing out CaCO3 and Mg(OH)2, lowering alk, requiring more kalk/Mg. Vicious cycle.

BTW - Who do you know with a "coral" tank???

 

[dzhuo]

DZ, my guess is too much kalk is forcing out CaCO3 and Mg(OH)2, lowering alk, requiring more kalk/Mg. Vicious cycle.

Didn't know high alk could cause low Mag. Thx!

BTW - Who do you know with a "coral" tank???

Just an observation that there seems to be a trend where everyone are packing their tank with lots of frags (SPS, LPS, zoa, softy) virtually using up every inch of the rock and sand bed. Looks somewhat unnatural to be a reef. I call these coral tanks. But that's just my opinion (and I don't expect many people to agree with me).

 

[Bananafish]

It's not "high alk" that causes low Mg. It's poor balance. Half of this is understanding how each thing you add affects everything else. If you push it, you get "snow" and blow out your chemistry. Just one possibility.

Ah... the "coral" tank. I have seen many of those. I have two frags I just bought and I can't wait to pry them off those *** plugs! Maybe I can reuse the plugs as door stops?