Alk,Calcium and Magnesium issue

[JFleur]

Tested my water and found...
Calcium is at 400
Magnesium is at 1170
Alkalinity is at 1.96

Cal and Mag test kits are Salifert
Alkalinity test kit is redsea

What are my options to safely raise these to more suitable numbers?

I have a mixed reef tank with 4 small fish

 

[Crabs McJones]

Alk is at 1.96? That cant be right.

 

[Jvesche20]

1.96??? Are you sure? do you have corals that are consuming alk? Ive never seen it that low before. If there are any corals that have to be dead by now. Do you have 2 part dosing?

 

[Billldg]

Agree with @Crabs McJones , Alk reading doesn't look right.

 

[Saltwatertaffy]

Yeah i would re checker your DKH

 

[JFleur]

Alk is at 1.96? That cant be right.

I tested twice... first test came to 2.14 meq/l testing 5ml water
Second test was 1.96 mep/l testing 10ml of water... all coral seem to be loving life, no die off at all.. actually growing great

 

[Jvesche20]

ahh thought you meant dkh. your leve is 5.5 dkh you need to raise it slowly

 

[JFleur]

Its between 5-6 dkh

 

[Crabs McJones]

I tested twice... first test came to 2.14 meq/l testing 5ml water
Second test was 1.96 mep/l testing 10ml of water... all coral seem to be loving life, no die off at all.. actually growing great

Ah! Ok were not talking DKH. It is still a bit low as that equates to around 6dkh

 

[JFleur]

ahh thought you meant dkh. your leve is 5.5 dkh you need to raise it slowly

I figured but what is the best solution? I have a bottle of reef carbonate but i was told i really shouldn't use it

 

[Crabs McJones]

What I would do is raise them slowly. Where you keep them is entirely up to you. Personally I like to keep 8dkh alkalinity, 420 calcium and 1400 magnesium

 

[Crabs McJones]

What do you have to supplement your levels?

 

[Righteous]

All For Reef is a nice simple all in one. It’s expensive, but if you don’t have a really high alkalinity demand it’s really convenient, high quality, and has trace elements that often get depleted.

All-For-Reef

Tropic Marin All-For-Reef is a revolutionary approach to dosing, combining calcium, alkalinity, and other trace elements into a single, easy to use solution. It's no longer necessary to maintain two, three, or four solutions, or a complicated reactor. All-For-Reef is a balanced source of calcium...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

They also have a nice dosing calculator at the bottom of this page

ALL-FOR-REEF - Tropic Marin®

ALL-FOR-REEF is an easy- to-use, highly concentrated solution for the supply of ALL essential minerals and trace elements in reef aquariums.

www.tropic-marin-smartinfo.com

 

[JFleur]

All For Reef is a nice simple all in one. It’s expensive, but if you don’t have a really high alkalinity demand it’s really convenient, high quality, and has trace elements that often get depleted.

All-For-Reef

Tropic Marin All-For-Reef is a revolutionary approach to dosing, combining calcium, alkalinity, and other trace elements into a single, easy to use solution. It's no longer necessary to maintain two, three, or four solutions, or a complicated reactor. All-For-Reef is a balanced source of calcium...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

They also have a nice dosing calculator at the bottom of this page

ALL-FOR-REEF - Tropic Marin®

ALL-FOR-REEF is an easy- to-use, highly concentrated solution for the supply of ALL essential minerals and trace elements in reef aquariums.

www.tropic-marin-smartinfo.com

Im currently only dosing with bio-enhance from quantum... would that be alright to dose along with it?

 

[JFleur]

What do you have to supplement your levels?

Thats the question im asking... what should i use to raise them?

 

[JFleur]

What I would do is raise them slowly. Where you keep them is entirely up to you. Personally I like to keep 8dkh alkalinity, 420 calcium and 1400 magnesium

those are the numbers im wanting in my tank as well

 

[Crabs McJones]

Either that

Thats the question im asking... what should i use to raise them?

I'm a big fan of BRS 2 part. Which is actually three. It's a soda ash, calcium chloride and magnesium chloride. You mix up a gallon of each and dose as needed per the calculator right on the BRS website. You enter your tank volume, enter your current level, your desired level, and itll tell you how much to dose to bring it up to that level.

 

[Righteous]

Im currently only dosing with bio-enhance from quantum... would that be alright to dose along with it?

Yes, the All for Reef is just major and some minor elements, no nutrients or vitamins so you can dose it with the quantum. Same for BRS 2 part which is just major elements.

Any 2 part like BRS or ESV are fine options. They’ll bring your alk, calc, mag up. Trace elements are nice to have, but depends on how often you do water changes, how heavily stocked your tank is, if you have a refugium which tends to use up more trace elements, etc. (I have found in my tanks, which always have refugiums, that the trace elements keep things healthy without constant water changes)

 

[Righteous]

And like Crab said.. go slow... and test between additions. Don’t try to hit target numbers with one or two additions. Maybe .5 dkh or about 0.2 meq/l per day or slower.

 

[bdare]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but make sure you add Magnesium first. This will help prevent precipitation when you add alkalinity.