High magnesium consumption on small tank normal?

[Houston03]

Hello reefers I have some questions regarding my magnesium consumption on my Nuvo 20 aio. The tank is about 6 months old and I am using tropic Marin pro reef salt and have 2 clowns and about 9 frags in the tank at the moment. My magnesium was constantly low around 1150-1170 or so, I have brought it up slowly by dosing brightwell magnesion everyday and testing magnesium every day until I got to 1330 and I thought that was a good number so I stopped dosing for a day to see my consumption. My tank went from 1330 to 1200, in BRS dosing calculator it shows I would need to dose 100ml per day to keep the magnesium levels stable around 1330 I feel like that is a lot for such a small tank with not a lot of corals in it. Is it normal for such consumption to occur on a tank that size with that amount of corals? Thank you in advance!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hello reefers I have some questions regarding my magnesium consumption on my Nuvo 20 aio. The tank is about 6 months old and I am using tropic Marin pro reef salt and have 2 clowns and about 9 frags in the tank at the moment. My magnesium was constantly low around 1150-1170 or so, I have brought it up slowly by dosing brightwell magnesion everyday and testing magnesium every day until I got to 1330 and I thought that was a good number so I stopped dosing for a day to see my consumption. My tank went from 1330 to 1200, in BRS dosing calculator it shows I would need to dose 100ml per day to keep the magnesium levels stable around 1330 I feel like that is a lot for such a small tank with not a lot of corals in it. Is it normal for such consumption to occur on a tank that size with that amount of corals? Thank you in advance!

I do not beleive that can be accurate. Maybe it is a salinity change?

Real magnesium consumption is not more than 1/10th of the calcium consumption. So for 130 ppm of magnesium to be consumed, you would had to have added at least 1300 ppm of calcium in that time.

How are you adding calcium, and how much?

 

[Houston03]

I do not beleive that can be accurate. Maybe it is a salinity change?

Real magnesium consumption is not more than 1/10th of the calcium consumption. So for 130 ppm of magnesium to be consumed, you would had to have added at least 1300 ppm of calcium in that time.

How are you adding calcium, and how much?

Hey Randy thanks for reply, I was dosing brightwell 2 part and then read further into it and read that I should get magnesium stable before starting to dose two part so I stopped dosing two part on October 28 and focused on my magnesium so I haven’t been adding any calcium for the past 6 days.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Hey Randy thanks for reply, I was dosing brightwell 2 part and then read further into it and read that I should get magnesium stable before starting to dose two part so I stopped dosing two part on October 28 and focused on my magnesium so I haven’t been adding any calcium for the past 6 days.

How are you measuring magnesium?

Did you use the same kit on your new salt water?

Magnesium testing is very fraught with errors.

My exopect6ation is that your magnesium reflects the amount in your salt mix, and is likely fine unless salinity is low.

 

[Houston03]

How are you measuring magnesium?

Did you use the same kit on your new salt water?

Magnesium testing is very fraught with errors.

My exopect6ation is that your magnesium reflects the amount in your salt mix, and is likely fine unless salinity is low.

I have been using salifert kit for every test

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have been using salifert kit for every test

Did you use that kit on your new salt water?

 

[Houston03]

Did you use that kit on your new salt water?

Yes sir sure did it had a similar reading of 1200. I am headed out to top shelf aquatics today and I am bringing a water sample to get a different test kit to test my water.

 

[YoubetyourWrasse]

Yes sir sure did it had a similar reading of 1200. I am headed out to top shelf aquatics today and I am bringing a water sample to get a different test kit to test my water.

I use salifert alot...but my consistant testing practice I always end up 100 or so high on salifert when compared to my ICP. Now, this is just my testing practice not the Salifert Kits fault...I prefer using AF mag and get closer to my ICP value with it. So I use the AF kit better than I use the Salifert kit lol. I do recommend the AF Mg kit for it's price point though.

 

[Houston03]

Just got done at top shelf, my refractometer must need to be recalibrated my salinity was only reading 1.023 with their test. I’m sure raising salinity will solve all my problems. Thanks for your help everyone.