Magnesium - Is there a way to raise it without using BRS MG or other name brands?

[Ashish Patel]

I don't think I have dosed MG for 5 years - when it was affordable dosing a 115gallon tank pre covid times. Now my system is 550gallon tank with a NO3 problem and I have not testing MG in awhile. I did a ICP test in the summer so don't think it was off so just rely on 2-3 month 25% waterchanges to bump it up.

Is this practice normal for others? Just let waterchanges bump up the MG since it doesnt deplete that fast? The range of 1200-1400 is pretty wide and in my previous tank it was always above like 1440 when I was using fritz salt. Now I am using Instant ocean and feel its probably 1200-1300.


Anyways, I hated the volume of MG needed to raise it up. I figure if its get to a really low range then I should have a strategy to raise it.
Any suggestion to doing a DIY or best methods would be a appreciated?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

BRS just markets my DIY recipe:

Do-It-Yourself Magnesium Supplements for the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

 

[Ashish Patel]

Thanks Randy, i'll take a look.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Wow Randy, Epson salt?? I am speechless! What would your recommend I do since I am not big on waterchanges but i can say I do at least a 25% every 2-4 months. Too many methods and I am leaning toward the mixing of epson salt and Mag Flakes.

 

[Miami Reef]

Wow Randy, Epson salt?? I am speechless! What would your recommend I do since I am not big on waterchanges but i can say I do at least a 25% every 2-4 months. Too many methods and I am leaning toward the mixing of epson salt and Mag Flakes.

Do you dose alkalinity? What do you use to maintain calcium and alkalinity?

 

[Ashish Patel]

Do you dose alkalinity? What do you use to maintain calcium and alkalinity?

My Mans Miami Reef to the rescue!

I am just dosing 10000ML Kalk continuously for 20 hours. I don't test CA or MG right now since my red sea test kits are expired so not sure how accurate they are. I did get an ICP test in the summer and it was fine besides the Iodine/Iron so I increased my weekly dose of lugols to 20 drops/week and Redsea Iron to 20ML/Week. Besides that I am not paying attention to MG since my last tank 25% waterchanges every 2 months with fritz salt kept it above 1400. Now that I am using IO I want to make sure it doesn't drop below 1300. Based on BRS calculator it would cost me $20 to bring my MG up by 100PPM.

 

[Miami Reef]

BRS just markets my DIY recipe:

Do-It-Yourself Magnesium Supplements for the Reef Aquarium by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

How much magnesium should he add for his limewater to use the RMM method?

Should he initially test magnesium since he dosed limewater for a while without adding magnesium?

 

[Ashish Patel]

How much magnesium should he add for his limewater to use the RMM method?

Should he initially test magnesium since he dosed limewater for a while without adding magnesium?

I can figure out how much to dose since i will test before and after but I'm curious to what's the best mag flakes to get.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Testing is not the best way to add magnesium due to the inaccuracy of mag tests.

Here’s a thread:

Rmm method and Limewater

Hello, I’m wondering how much magnesium chloride/sulfate to add to my tank if I dose 10 gallons of limewater a week. I understand that I need 5-10% magnesium as I do calcium, so how does that calculate out when using limewater? Assume limewater is fully saturated. Thanks!

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Ashish Patel]

Great, at least I can not feel so bad about not staying on top of MG. Even if testing is not accurate I would hope they are at least good for knowing when your consumption is going up or down. When I was testing MG with redsea I found it nearly always was testing at 1440PPM, a number I hear a lot of hobbyist thinking their MG is elevated.

According to the thread I get an idea of my MG consumption, Thanks

Below is my ICP test from June 2023. MG was at 1355PPM which was satisfactory considering the tank had been setup for a year. However, I did use fritz salt during the first year, had minimum growth and since gone to IO salt, so I would not be surprised it my MG has fallen to 1250ppm today.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Why would someone go to the effort of laying out the elements in that format and not actually arrange them like a normal periodic table?

 

[Ashish Patel]

Why would someone go to the effort of laying out the elements in that format and not actually arrange them like a normal periodic table?

Lol . Because I think they assumed everyone other than Randy Holmes Farley would see this.