High Magnesium

BillyP

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Hey yall so my water parameters are decent except for a couple of parameters. Alk is 9.4 which is personally a little low, Calcium is 414, Magnesium is way too high, the first time I tested it, I thought I tested it wrong, both times I tested it, the result came out to around 1800. Im planning on doing a 50% water change with fritz RPM. The tank is new and when I originally mixed the salt, it was with Red Seas coral pro salt. And my water is cloudy, but the rest of my parameters are fine, phosphate is undetectable (im planning on raising that by adding more fish) nitrates are also undetectable. To measure magnesium and nitrates, I used red seas test kits. To test phosphates, alkalinity, and calcium, I used hanna checkers. Salinity is 1.025. Ph is low at 7.94 measured by a seneye reef but im planning on raising that too. Do you think my water is cloudy because of my high magnesium? I believe that the cloudiness started last month during the cycle. 130 gallon display and a 65 gallon sump. Will be uploading pictures. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
 

Dr. Reef

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9.4 dkh is not low personally I like it between 7.5 to 8. Cal is ok can be 420 to 440. Mag at 1800 is high but not a problem and i wouldn't take any action to fix it. Most likely if tested correctly would come down through water changes with lower mag over time. I have successfully kept tanks between 900 to 2100 mag levels.

Cloudiness could be 2 two things.
1. Precipitation due to high alk
Or 2. Due to bacterial bloom.
 

biophilia

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Probably not worth chasing the pH at 7.94 as it usually causes more trouble than it's worth. If you have the option, open some windows and make sure you have decent surface agitation if you're not running a skimmer.

As for the Red Sea Coral Pro salt, look for a little white sticker on the bucket with a 10 digit number on it. Look it up here: https://www.redseafish.com/my-batch/

If Red Sea's "My Batch" lookup tool reports a significantly lower magnesium concentration, you probably have a bad Mg test kit or some precipitate in your test kit vials. If they have a cloudy film on them, try rinsing them with vinegar and then rodi water and testing again.

If you have a skimmer, make sure the water is not just cloudy because of microbubbles.
 

HolisticBear

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Red Sea Mg has a bad reputation for reading high, can you LFS test it for you using another brand like Salifert?

With Calcium testing, you can typically add 80+% of the regent and do titration until the color change, however the instructions for Mg say you need to do titration from the beginning.

Mg makes up a large component of salinity, so I would re-calibrate your refractometer in case salinity is high.
 

SPR1968

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Your Alkalinity is only low by the standards of the Red Sea Accelerated Growth Program which goes for 12.6dKH but it’s not low by ‘normal’ standards.

I ran my system at the higher levels and the corals grew like crazy for 12 months.

My Mg has always been high and I currently use the standard Red Sea Salt (I used Coral Pro for 12 months to and it’s good). I’ve never needed to dose Mg and it averages at about 1480 but is currently 1600 with no ill effects infact I only test occasionally now for it, so as said above I wouldn’t worry about it.

There have been reports of the salt causing cloudiness if it’s been mixed for long periods and causes precipitation. There is a thread on here about it somewhere. I’ve never experienced this but....
 

clarimore

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You can't really do a thing but wait until it goes down. Mine never has and has sat for years at 1500 or so. I will tell you Fritz RPM has really high Mag. So thats going in the wrong direction. I started re using IO. Still high mag.
I switched to fritz because that all the lfs had. boom 1600 mag!
 

Nemoreef

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Hey yall so my water parameters are decent except for a couple of parameters. Alk is 9.4 which is personally a little low, Calcium is 414, Magnesium is way too high, the first time I tested it, I thought I tested it wrong, both times I tested it, the result came out to around 1800. Im planning on doing a 50% water change with fritz RPM. The tank is new and when I originally mixed the salt, it was with Red Seas coral pro salt. And my water is cloudy, but the rest of my parameters are fine, phosphate is undetectable (im planning on raising that by adding more fish) nitrates are also undetectable. To measure magnesium and nitrates, I used red seas test kits. To test phosphates, alkalinity, and calcium, I used hanna checkers. Salinity is 1.025. Ph is low at 7.94 measured by a seneye reef but im planning on raising that too. Do you think my water is cloudy because of my high magnesium? I believe that the cloudiness started last month during the cycle. 130 gallon display and a 65 gallon sump. Will be uploading pictures. Any help is appreciated. Thanks!
Any updates? I have very similar parameters, high Mag and water is cloudy. Nitrate and Phos undetectable. Did you figure out the issue?
 

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