Magnesium increasing without dosing or water change

Drewbacca

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Would red sea reef energy a & b have mg? Only other thing i add besides food & kalk.
 

Dkeller_nc

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Red Sea Reef Energy A/B is essentially carbohydrates, fatty acids, amino acids and vitamins. None of this should contain magnesium in any significant amount, though it's possible it has traces from some of the source chemicals to make it. And it's not impossible for the calcium hydroxide in kalkwasser powder to be contaminated by magnesium hydroxide from the manufacturing process, since the source of the quick lime that is slaked to produce calcium hydroxide is natural limestone that's cooked in large batches in a cement plant. Natural deposits of limestone often contain significant amounts of magnesium, typically as magnesium sulfate.

You could potentially test for this if you've some hydrochloric acid around. You'd want to make up the kalkwasser to saturation as normal, then neutralize the solution to pH 7 - 8 with dilute hydrchloric acid to prevent the high pH of straight kalkwasser from interfering with the Salifert test. I'm sure there would be a lot of folks here that would be interested in your results.
 

Drewbacca

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Thanks,
This Elevated magnesium thing is perplexing.
I would love to try this test and share the results, but I checked the medicine cabinet & pantry.. no Hydrochloric Acid.
Is this google find related?
"Do not use a strong base, such as sodium hydroxide, to neutralize a strong acid like hydrochloric acid. ... The sodium bicarbonate will not neutralize the spill, and acetic acid could react strongly with the base. If you spill an acid or base on your skin, immediately wash well with water.
Laboratory Safety"
 

Art2249

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What salt brand do you use. I use HW Marinemix Reefer that has a pretty high MG. Consequently I don't need to add MG, or if I do it's very rarely. I know the tank is using it though. Maybe your salt mix has too much MG based on what your tank actually uses.
 

JDJP

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Make sure you clean your test vial really well every time, rinse with RO water and wipe it out with a clean cloth. That helped my neighbor with a similar issue.
 

Art2249

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Scratch my previous post it doesn't make sense. Unless your salt mix has over 1600 mg ! :)
 

Drewbacca

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Np. Red Sea.. the salinty thing is all i can think to make it concentrated..or test as suggested. I'll buy a new refractometer & solution...triple clean my test, then buy a new test, then contact brs about kalk. Cant wait for triton to get their stuff together & US lab built..easy fast deeper insight.
 

Dkeller_nc

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Thanks,
This Elevated magnesium thing is perplexing.
I would love to try this test and share the results, but I checked the medicine cabinet & pantry.. no Hydrochloric Acid.
Is this google find related?
"Do not use a strong base, such as sodium hydroxide, to neutralize a strong acid like hydrochloric acid. ... The sodium bicarbonate will not neutralize the spill, and acetic acid could react strongly with the base. If you spill an acid or base on your skin, immediately wash well with water.
Laboratory Safety"

You can get hydrochloric acid (concentrated) from a pool supply store. It's also sold as muriatic acid in the home store for etching concrete, though I'm a bit suspicious about that grade for actually adding to saltwater mix for lowering alkalinity. At any rate, it's highly useful stuff to have around, particularly for very rapidly removing calcium carbonate deposits on glass and plastic, though obviously you'd want to dilute it significantly for the purpose.

If you choose to lower the pH of your kalkwasser for a magnesium test, you will want to dilute the concentrated hydrochloric about 1:100; otherwise, just one drop in a substantial amount of kalkwasser will bottom the pH out to 2 or 3, as kalkwasser doesn't have much in the way of buffering capacity.

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "google find related", but you could in theory use any acid to lower the pH of kalkwasser for the test. The difficulty is that I'm not sure what the presence of acetate in the sample will do to the dye from adding acetic acid (vinegar) to the sample to lower the pH. It might be fine, but it might not.

In any event, without directly testing the materials that you suspect, it's probably not going to be possible to nail down the source of the magnesium.
 
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Crashjack

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Came across this because im having the exact same issue. I only dose kalk, And use salifert mg kit (3 test in a row yesterday), my salinity is always good and check daily with properly calibrated refractometer. I AM however doing weekly 15% water changes With red sea coral pro, but that would make it stay more regulated I wld think. My mg is at 1560-1600. Calc 445 449 alk 8.5 ph 7.9 8.0 nitrate 0 phos 0.0. I wouldnt care too much if everything was growing fine but My corals arent growing and even took a downhill turn past few days. Esp, torch frag keeps receeding and cant figure out why. I feed alot & even target feed. So checked mg, which I hadnt tested often.

Your situation is eerily like mine was. I’m a second time reefer, who returned to the hobby after a 15 or so year hiatus. This go-round, I started with all dry rock, a good skimmer, and I kept a low bioload and light feedings to keep nitrates/phosphates low. My corals looked like they were in formaldehyde. They had some color but no growth, and zoas/polyps remained very small and didn’t spread at all. I had never thought nitrates/phosphates could be too low, but a healthy dose of dinos taught me otherwise.

I’m telling you this because it plays into my hypothesis as to why the high Mg readings. Another issue I had before the dinos and before increasing nutrients was precipitation due to saturated alk and Ca from topping-off with kalk. I believe part of the problem was that my corals were using next to no alk/Ca because there was no growth (I also didn’t have a lot of coral and almost all of it was just frags on plugs). I think that Mg wasn’t being utilized either so the Mg in the kalk and that in the water changes caused Mg to build-up as well. I log all of my test readings and element and nutrient additions, and I went 2+ months with high Mg while adding no Mg product. I tested every week with Salifert test kits (multiple kits) and always got similar results so I know it wasn’t the kit or me screwing-up a test. Once I got nutrients up and corals started growing, I started seeing decreases in Mg and had to start adding Mg.

The biggest advice I can give is to not worry about your Mg readings and start adding nitrates and phosphates. If you get them up in time (before a dino plague), you will start seeing growth and will likely fix your Mg problem. I would increase phosphates to at least .1 ppm and nitrates to at least 10 ppm. You might get hair algae, cyano, or something you don’t like, but those things are usually temporary and not that hard to fix. Let your tank run at these higher nutrients for at least a few months before adding anything like carbon or a resin to reduce nutrients. It is best to allow nutrients to decrease on their own if you can. That way you don’t accidentally bring them back to zero.
 

Crustaceon

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Possible mg precipitation issue due to ionic imbalance? It makes me wonder if the already elevated mg precipitated onto pumps/heater etc. due to either calcium or alk being in the “goldilocks” zone for it to happen and then was released when those parameters shifted, causing mg to further skyrocket. A reef chemist would probably know that answer.
 
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Randy Holmes-Farley

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I think that Mg wasn’t being utilized either so the Mg in the kalk and that in the water changes caused Mg to build-up as well.
.

That's not the explanation. Kalk has very (VERY) little magnesium in it, and loads of alk and calcium. There's no way calcium hydroxide solutions would be a cause of high magnesium.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Possible mg precipitation issue due to ionic imbalance? It makes me wonder if the already elevated mg precipitated onto pumps/heater etc. due to either calcium or alk being in the “goldilocks” zone for it to happen and then was released when those parameters shifted, causing mg to further skyrocket. A reef chemist would probably know that answer.

No, not likely either. Magnesium only comprises a small fraction of the material that precipitates (even when magnesium is high) and if it redissolved to boost magnesium noticeably, alk would go wildly high.
 

Darakuja

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have you every found why your magnesium is raising ?, I have the same problem , I can see it on my trident , everyday is going up about 20
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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have you every found why your magnesium is raising ?, I have the same problem , I can see it on my trident , everyday is going up about 20

It is testing error if you added nothing and salinity is stable. Magnesium does not simply rise. Note that the salinity rise for a 20 ppm rise in magnesium is not detectable with a hobby refractometer.
 

Darakuja

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It is testing error if you added nothing and salinity is stable. Magnesium does not simply rise. Note that the salinity rise for a 20 ppm rise in magnesium is not detectable with a hobby refractometer.
Like I said it’s going up everyday , testing with my Neptune trident and Salifert , I did turn of my calcium reactor and now I’m dosing alk(baking soda ) and calcium and still the same , magnesium is going up
 

Darakuja

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It is testing error if you added nothing and salinity is stable. Magnesium does not simply rise. Note that the salinity rise for a 20 ppm rise in magnesium is not detectable with a hobby refractometer.
I did sent my water to Triton lab and magnesium was 1660 , I did a lot if water changes with regular red seA salt it’s got low
Magnesium about 1250 , so I drop it down to 1440 and since that time it’s going up and up
 

MnFish1

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I did sent my water to Triton lab and magnesium was 1660 , I did a lot if water changes with regular red seA salt it’s got low
Magnesium about 1250 , so I drop it down to 1440 and since that time it’s going up and up
Then something doesnt make sense - if its really going up '20/day' that means that 20 days ago it would have been 1260. Now there is no doubt that it 'is high'. Are you absolutely sure that you aren't dosing something with Mg in It? Are you sure that your salt was well mixed - i.e. the 'dry salt' ? Before you added it to water - and that the 'salt water' istelf was well mixed. ? Seems like there has to be another cause
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Like I said it’s going up everyday , testing with my Neptune trident and Salifert , I did turn of my calcium reactor and now I’m dosing alk(baking soda ) and calcium and still the same , magnesium is going up

I know, but it cannot ever rise on its own, so there is some source or salinity is rising.

How much total rise?


what exact calcium product?

what about salinity?
 

Darakuja

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I know, but it cannot ever rise on its own, so there is some source or salinity is rising.

How much total rise?


what exact calcium product?

what about salinity?
Salinity is steady 1.025 All the time , I’m using brs calcium chloride. Maybe that’s gonna help , couple mounts ago maybe a year ago I’ve got a problem to raise the magnesium , I add to my calcium reactor two packs of remag media and I still needs to add liquid magnesium to raise it up , now my calcium reactor is turned off , I’m dosing now
 
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