Over view of my first 12 weeks of parameters and High Mg in HW marine

[Bradley Keck]

Hello everybody! It excites me to even be able to post a question like this. It's been a long time coming to have my tank finally up and running! When it came time to choose a salt mix, I decided to go with HW marinemix. Why? well, I heard a lot of good things about it partly on here and on BRS. My 5' 150g tank has been up and running since the end of July. It was cycled with 88# pre-cured live Pukani and 30# of pacific import rock(GMP) I have not used any additives. Only the salt mix. My parameters have been fairly consistent:

Salinity: 1.025 - 1.024 (refractometer calibrated with 1.026 solution)
pH: 8.0 - 8.24 (Hanna pocket checker calibrated with 7.0 solution)
Alk: 8.2 - 8.1 (Hanna checker)
Ca: 460 - 455(red sea titration test)
Mg: 1600+ (red sea titration test)
nitrates: started out at around 24ppm 8 weeks ago, now I cannot detect any(red sea test kit)
Phosphate: .78 - .22(Hanna checker)
Temp 78.1

So, I have been OK with most of the readings except for the Mg, high nitrate, and high phosphate. I have tried to focus on lowering the nitrate and phosphate with what I have - skimmer, refugium with chaeto, WC, and carbon/GFO. I got my refugium going with chaeto, but I only have the H80 hanging over it, and it has not grown at all really. I would not say it is dying back either. Over the past 11 weeks, I would say its about the same size. But my refugium is growing all kinds of crazy algae. I'm OK with that since it is not display refugium. When ROX8 was not available I went with Boyd's elite for carbon and GFO. My skimmer is RO 150INT. No oversized for the tank like is typically recommended. I have seen my nitrates dive down over the past 4 weeks from 12ppm to undetectable. My phosphates gradually have gone down, but I cannot seem to get them under .20. I just did add ROX8 and high capacity GFO with a reactor. I only added 50% of the recommended amount of GFO. I'm starting to have a hair algae outbreak in the DT and I think this is why my nitrates nosedived. I have dreaded this stage of the maturity process.

-Other than focusing on continued lowering of my phosphate, is there anything else I should do while I ride this hair algae out? Raise Alk to help establish better coraline coverage? I have scarlet hermits, trochus snails, and a yellow eye kole tang to try and help keep it under control. I'm concerned about it choking out some of my coral frags. It's taking hold mostly in areas without coraline growth. I have Kessil/T5 hybrid system. and have shut off the T5's. Not sure if that was a good idea or will help at all?

- My Mg is obviously way to high. this has to be saltmix. I had two boxes from this past spring and thought maybe it was just a bad couple boxes, but after two 25% WC on a new box and readings still 1600+ I'm seeing a trend here. My concern is the health of my corals with such high Mg. I have 1 1 toadstool, 1 ricordia, 1 acan, 1 trumpet, 3 monticaps, one birdsnest, 1 hammer euphyllia, 1 favia, and 1 favites. Everything is doing OK so far, but you know how that can go. I have seeing the trumpet and toadstool grow well - they have been in the tank the longest (6wks). the trumpet has gone from 6 heads to 12. One red monti cap and the acan have been in there 4wks - the Monti has started to encrust on the rock I glued it too underneath and the acan shows good polyp extension, but still the same three heads. Everything else was just added this past week from the WWC live sale. Again, too early to say, but so far everything is showing good polyp extension. Should I just stick with the same mix or should I expect eventually this high Mg is going to start affecting the corals and make a switch to a new brand?

Sorry this is so lengthy. All of you on R2R are the only ones I can talk to about all this. My Wife and two daughters are not interested for some reason

 

[Bradley Keck]

I forgot to list my current bioload other than the corals. 2 scarlet reef hermits, 6 trochus snails, one midas blenny and one kole eye tang. The midas has been in there for 3 weeks, the kole eye was just added out of order. My plan was to add a pair of clowns, then a melanarus wrasse, and finally the kole tang. I will admit to a spontaneous buy at Premium aquatics. I have not found a pair of clowns that I want yet and this little guy (2.5in) was just calling my name. I feed only what Boopert(the midas) and Kole will eat and try to keep wasted food to a minimum. I have target fed the corals a little, maybe once a week, with reef chili. I have dosed phyoto about 1-2x/wk. I added the 5280 package from algae barn 10 weeks ago and just finished off the bottle of phyto that came with it. Thanks everyone! Please let me know what you think about my parameters, controlling the algae based on my set-up and bioload, and the high Mg.

 

[Bradley Keck]

Check that. 12 scarlet hermits

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Many people have problems specifically with the Red Sea magnesium kit, and I would not assume that magnesium is really that high.

The other parameters generally look OK expect the phosphate, which is high, but not necessarily a huge problem. Some great tanks have higher phosphate than yours. I'd probably look to export more (GFO is a good bet, IMO, but other methods work too). The refugium may have stopped growing as fast as it might appreciably due to low nitrate.

As tot he algae, an algae eating fish might be the best bet. Something like a one spot foxface (mine ate all ate and eliminate a bad caulerpa infestation) or a rabbit fish. Yellow tangs are good, but not as good (IME).

 

[Bradley Keck]

Many people have problems specifically with the Red Sea magnesium kit, and I would not assume that magnesium is really that high.

The other parameters generally look OK expect the phosphate, which is high, but not necessarily a huge problem. Some great tanks have higher phosphate than yours. I'd probably look to export more (GFO is a good bet, IMO, but other methods work too). The refugium may have stopped growing as fast as it might appreciably due to low nitrate.

As tot he algae, an algae eating fish might be the best bet. Something like a one spot foxface (mine ate all ate and eliminate a bad caulerpa infestation) or a rabbit fish. Yellow tangs are good, but not as good (IME).

Thank You Randy. I have been thinking about a one spot or lo to add. I figure since I have the Kole eye already, their would be less concerns with compatibility adding a foxface lo instead of a zebrasoma. I really appreciate your input, it has me calmed down already I wonder about the accuracy of the red sea Mg kit as well. Just doesn't seem right, but after 7 measures total now, I have been very careful to not cross-contaminate and titrate as accurately as possible. No doubt about it, but every time I use at least .86ml of titrate. I did notice that the glass container for the Mg looks slightly translucent near the bottom, and wondered if something was not quite right with that test kit. Maybe I will try a different Mg kit. Thanks Again!

 

[Bradley Keck]

I'll stick with the GFO too. My goal will be less than .10ppm. I'll try ramping up the refugium light time from 10 to maybe 12-14 hours as well.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You're welcome.

If you get as different brand, you might try the Salifert magnesium kit.

Happy Reefing.

 

[HolisticBear]

As Randy said, the RedSea Mg test has a bad reputation. The vast majority of their products have good reputations, but the Mg test kit and their refractometer don't get good reviews.

Salifert is a good recommendation. You'll notice with the Ca test that they recommend adding 80% of the solution, then doing titration to speed up testing.. However, the Mg test does not say this and says to do titration from the first drop.

 

[Bradley Keck]

You're welcome.

If you get as different brand, you might try the Salifert magnesium kit.

Happy Reefing.

I will do that. The Salifert kit is what I will grab. Thank You.

 

[Bradley Keck]

As Randy said, the RedSea Mg test has a bad reputation. The vast majority of their products have good reputations, but the Mg test kit and their refractometer don't get good reviews.

Salifert is a good recommendation. You'll notice with the Ca test that they recommend adding 80% of the solution, then doing titration to speed up testing.. However, the Mg test does not say this and says to do titration from the first drop.

I did not know that about the Ca test. I must say it was tedious to shake after every drop, and I must a dmit to doing several drops every now and then, but wondered how much that was necessary. I also noticed that with the Mg test, you have to add one drop of "A" at a time, shake for 15sec and then repeat 4x more. Thank You for your help. I can always count on R2R.