Trying to raise mag...is this really how you do it???

[afamousjohnson]

So my mag has been low so I have been steadily dosing on a daily basis for over a week now per my tank volume (5-7tsps in ro twice a day)with little results. Tested my make up water earlier and found it held mag around 900 hence the low mag.lol looked further into it found the calculator system for raising mag

Reef Chemistry Calculator

My volume is in the 105 us gallon mark. My mag is sitting in the 1100-1120 mark and over the past 4 days of dosing and testing have been able to hit 1200 but it falls to 1120 again within a day (using red sea test kit)
I want to be around my 1300 mark so raising it from 1120 and the calculator says I need 179.5 tsps of my dry seachem mag suppliment.... is this the correct way to go from others that have been through this? Seems like a lot.
like almost the entire container of my mag suppliment.
I took 80tsps and disolveled it in 2L of ro water and will use this over the next 3 days. Does this sound right? And once I get it back up will it stay a bit more steady as what ive read?
any advice appreciated

 

[Muney Mun]

My mag usually low like that and I dose with brightwell aquatics magnesion and it raised it quickly over a few day period and didn't use that much to do so. Are u using instant ocean reef salt because that's what I use and usually mag levels are low with it from my experience.

 

[adevice]

I'm using Red sea coral pro salt and had mag under 1100, so I used 2 tsp brightwell everyday for over a week to get it up near 1300 (I have around 250 gallons total water). I maintain it with 2 tsp every week, I seem to go through the tub pretty fast.

Your numbers seem extremely high, but I'm not familiar with that product. I don't see brightwell on that calc to compare.

 

[Greenstreet.1]

I was using red sea mag test for a few months it use to tell me my mag was low all the time so I went out and got an elos mag test and my mag was way to hi over 1550 tested with the elos three times was always hi and the red sea was still say low. It could be that I just had a bad test kit but you never know so I would test against a next test just to be sure. I only use Salifert for po4 and no3 and elos for the rest.


The Lord is good.

 

[bct15]

I think your test kit has gone bad, I would verify it against another test kit.

 

[mike007]

What are your alk. and ca.levels? They all work together. Don't get too hung up on raising mag. without knowing your other levels. Your mag. levels are not that far off. Make sure all your parameters are okay and don;t overdose.

 

[NanaReefer]

I'd add it directly to your tank, not your top off.


Sent from my iPhone 4s via Tapatalk.

 

[mcarroll]

What are your alk. and ca.levels? They all work together. Don't get too hung up on raising mag. without knowing your other levels. Your mag. levels are not that far off. Make sure all your parameters are okay and don;t overdose.

+1

There really aren't any bad side-effects to low Magnesium...or at least you're unlikely to see them.

There's so much Mg in the water (as you niticed by the dosing requirement) that there's almost no way to remove a "dangerous" amount of it....you'll run out of alk way before Mg gets too low in a precipitation or usage situation, for example.

Plus, like Mike007 says, Mg "works" in concert with Ca and the alk buffers...if alk is low, you're not going to get super accurate test results for Ca or Mg. (There's a good link out there that explains this....just can't find it now. Pretty sure the advice from the Reef Calculator that comes with your calculation accounts for this testing problem.)

If all other parameters are "correct", then I'd second getting your Mg level double-checked at the LFS so you're sure about dosing.

-Matt

 

[afamousjohnson]

Ya im gonna cross check the test kit cause it seems out of whack and my redsea alk test gives around a whole 1# higher than it actually is (same reef foundations kit) double checked with my hanna meter. I use seachem reef salt...but I did have some left over instant ocean that got mixed in and it is getting to the end of the bucket so I can see that.

been tryin to dial in a cal reactor so my #'s are all over the place it seems.lol but we're looking at

mid day testing/77°/ph8.2
alk 8.6
cal was off the chart blinking in at 600-I since did a wc and have gotten it down to 547.
both with hanna hand held

 

[afamousjohnson]

Took 3 seperate mag tests and got 3 seperate results ugh
1st (my test) 1200 of course.lol
2nd (lfs) 1300
3rd (lfs newer test kit) 1400

 

[mcarroll]

Take heart:

None of those numbers really warrant any urgency.

There is no real point in comparing results between test kits unless you suspect a problem. You aren't likely to get identical results for a number of reasons. Your numbers are all close enough when you consider margins of error. If you do suspect your kit, you can call its result an outlier and have an even tighter "set" of readings. If so, pitch your kit and buy new. Doesn't look like there's any issue at all with Mg levels though!

-Matt

 

[beaslbob]

it can /will take what seems to be a lot of magnesium to bring it up.

I recommend you use magnesium chloride and epson salts per the diy plan.

my .02