Mg levels are up and down

[reef80]

In summary...my 75G tank has had stable MG levels at about 1350 for about 6 months up until a month ago. I notice that it dropped to 1100 a month ago because I could not not keep my Alk and Cal at where they were at. Once I got it back to 1350... I decided to go online w/ daily dosing at 15ML but it was too much and there were swings like from 1200 to 1400+ daily. I took it offline like 2 weeks ago and also prolonged my water changes to see if it would still have those swings and it is still doing so. Strange becuase it is low in the morning like 1300 and then gets up to like 1500+ at night time. Yesterday it was still doing this. Anyone has this happen to them? I trying to figure it out becuase I think this is ****ing my sps off and some of them are starting to go AWOL on me. All my parms are fine and there are no daily swings in them at all. There must be something that is leaching Mg traces inside the tank but I don't understand the swing. I thought that once Mg does down then it does rise until I dose it back up. Frustrating at the moment. Please share if you have any thoughts or clues...

 

[reef80]

I went home and tested it and it went down from 9:30pm (last night) 1500+ on Mg and around 12:00am (today) it went down to 1420. My guess is that it will go up again around 1500 later this evening. Any ideas as to what might be happening...?

 

[reef80]

I'am sure this is not a common problem but i figure I just put my updates on this and see if anyone else had thoughts...

Mg updates...so after much researching and ruling in and ruling out and being on the verge of desperate due go to AWOL and **** of $p$...I think that I have come to a conclusion on my Mg levels. I look at all possibilities and changes that have take place in the past month since this has been happening. After doing more research on Mg traces and what would increase it...I've narrowed it down to my DAMN FISH FLAKES (Omega 1 Marine Flakes w/ garlic) which I purchase a month ago and started to use vs what I usually use which is Ocean Nutrition brand. This past week, Ive been testing once in the morning and once later at night and it would increase from like 1300 to 1400+ at nighttime. Yesterday I overfeed my fishes just for the heck of it and the MG was past 1500. I tested this morning at 11:30am and it went down to 1410. I tested at 830pm tonight and it had dropped down to 1380. I put in about a pinch of the flake food 3x and just tested now about 1.5 hrs later and bingo...it is now registering at 1440. I Now I think I have concluded my Mg swing and I'am contributing it to the new flake food that I purchased a month ago. This explains why my mg drops during hours of sleep and goes back up after the lights are on. I only feed the tank after I come back form work 3x when the lights are on and test the Mg right before I go to sleep which would explained the increase because of my feeding during that time. Well I'm going to stop that brand food and go back to just the pellets and test closely again for the next few days. I was ready to throw in the towels because a lot of my frags have stn from the MG swings this whole month and I have some stunt growth. I didn't realize that it can be this bad...Thank SPS God...I stumbled on that insight article concluding that some fish food can increase Mg levels in our tank. Let me know if anyone has heard of this or not...

 

[Savoie83]

I have to test this. I am using this food for over 2 years.