Magnesium and Calcium not increasing with AFR, normal?

[areefer01]

I didn't see it mentioned here but have you determined yet what your daily consumption rate is? Water change, test, repeat tests every other day or daily if you have time, and look at what the consumption is for say alk and ca?

You mentioned relatively new tank with corals only a week or short while.

 

[testuser]

I didn't see it mentioned here but have you determined yet what your daily consumption rate is? Water change, test, repeat tests every other day or daily if you have time, and look at what the consumption is for say alk and ca?

You mentioned relatively new tank with corals only a week or short while.

That's a super good point. I found it odd that throughout the week and before/after the water change, the calcium and magnesium didn't move a single point. All the while, since I've been dosing, alkalinity has been on the rise (very slowly). Is your thought that raising it at this point not matter since the corals aren't leveraging it for growth?

Also, at what point do we normally see corals begin to consume these elements?

 

[areefer01]

That's a super good point. I found it odd that throughout the week and before/after the water change, the calcium and magnesium didn't move a single point. All the while, since I've been dosing, alkalinity has been on the rise (very slowly). Is your thought that raising it at this point not matter since the corals aren't leveraging it for growth?

Also, at what point do we normally see corals begin to consume these elements?

My thought was more to raise awareness of knowing how your system was, or was not, consuming alk, ca, and mg. Testing periodically or at a set schedule helps answer this question. It very well could be that your scheduled water changes will manage it. Or maybe not. If not then you at least know what is being consumed and at what rate to help set your dose.

It isn't uncommon for a new tank to be managed by either water change or manual adjustments. As the display matures and corals added of course this will change.

 

[testuser]

My thought was more to raise awareness of knowing how your system was, or was not, consuming alk, ca, and mg. Testing periodically or at a set schedule helps answer this question. It very well could be that your scheduled water changes will manage it. Or maybe not. If not then you at least know what is being consumed and at what rate to help set your dose.

It isn't uncommon for a new tank to be managed by either water change or manual adjustments. As the display matures and corals added of course this will change.

The crux of my problem is that regardless of water changes, my anticipated ca, alk, and mg are all (what I think) significantly lower than the expected range by Aquaforest Sea Salt, which I thought was weird. I figured it would be good to get those (at least calcium) to the recommended levels, or if nothing else, the expectations set by Aquaforest.

 

[Reef.]

All for Reef is meant to maintain what parameters you already have. It is not supposed to increase your values (except alkalinity, which might).

So buy another form of calcium and magnesium supplement and increase those parameters to what you want them to be. Once you’ve tested and it’s fine, then start testing AFR with your actual dose to see if it keeps stable. If so, you’re done. If not, increase AFR until it is (you might have to readjust calcium and/or magnesium they decreased while your’ were testing over a few days/weeks).

Exactly what the instructions on AFR state.

 

[testuser]

To pose this differently: if my calcium levels are lower, but they don't decrease in a week, is it necessary to raise them? Is this purely a situation for usage, or does the existence of a higher calcium level (even if not decreasing) is beneficial?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

To pose this differently: if my calcium levels are lower, but they don't decrease in a week, is it necessary to raise them? Is this purely a situation for usage, or does the existence of a higher calcium level (even if not decreasing) is beneficial?

Depends on how low, of course. If 340 ppm calcium is accurate, then yes, it is desirable to raise it to about 420 ppm.

 

[testuser]

Onwar

Depends on how low, of course. If 340 ppm calcium is accurate, then yes, it is desirable to raise it to about 420 ppm.

Onward and upward! Sounds good. I'll figure out someday why I'm not getting the expected results for Aquaforest. In the meantime, I'll fix it. Thanks for all of your help and tracking this, Randy!

 

[Reef.]

To pose this differently: if my calcium levels are lower, but they don't decrease in a week, is it necessary to raise them? Is this purely a situation for usage, or does the existence of a higher calcium level (even if not decreasing) is beneficial?

The truth is no one knows exactly what correct lvls of mag, calcium or alk are to have in a home aquarium, some aim for natural sea water lvls some aim higher, it’s a case of picking a range and keeping your lvls within that range and hope it works for your tank.

With AFR you are meant to only start using it when your lvls are where you want them, AFR will then try and keep them there, each tank has different corals etc so it can only add the average amount of elements that the average tank uses, you keep alk as stable as possible and the AFR will add in enough calcium and mag to keep the lvls correct, calcium is easier to balance as it normally follows alk, mag can be a little different as it is not so easy to predict, but you will only see your mag creep up or down over weeks or months not day by day.

Once alk is stable calcium should not increase or decrease, but worth checking monthly to see where it’s at, you can then add a little calcium to get it back to where it needs to be, or stop AFR for a small time to lower it, you would then add a separate alk to keep alk stable whilst not dosing AFR, but AFR is very good at keeping lvls balance so changes tend to be small and not very often. Same with mag, as said mag will be slow to see the change generally so no need to test often.

The aim is to see your lvls in the same range every time you test, not trending up or down.
Here is a good read to set your lvls. Once set it’s good to use a salt within those lvls so you don’t have to keep altering them with water changes. (Small water changes would not alter the lvls much, only large changes).

https://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/

 

[ReefGeezer]

Interestingly, I have been dosing AFR for quite a while now. I still test alk, calcium, and magnesium weekly. There seems to be an interesting thing happening. The requirement for alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium was pretty steady when I was dosing them separately. When I started using AFR instead, demand started increasing because things started growing way faster... particularly Coralline and Monti's. I used two part components to restore levels that had dropped a little and increased the dose of AFR to match the demand. Growth and demand increased again. The process was repeated. I've been taking little swings at getting the right dose and I'm getting closer. I still haven't got to the AFR dose to the point that is makes up for the additional growth it encourages. Its a good problem to have though.

 

[Idech]

I still haven't got to the AFR dose to the point that is makes up for the additional growth it encourages. Its a good problem to have though.

I wish I had to problem, but not quite there yet, lol !