Can somebody give me a quick Chemistry lesson?

T

troublemaker

Member
Everything I thought I knew isn't working for what I have going on right now. My Alk and Cal are sitting higher than I like at 10.5 and 550 while magnesium is too low at 1050. We have had all dosing equipment that turned off to let the first two drift down on there own and have turned to manual dosing of Mag. The trouble is I can't seem to get the Mag number to raise no matter how much we dose. I can raise it temporarily but it drifts back down in a day or two. The system seems to be using Mag ten times as fast as Alk and Cal. There is no precipitation happening even with the parameters this far out of wack.

Is there something else happening here that I am overlooking?
 
Sawdonkey

Sawdonkey

Premium member
Is your Mag tester accurate? Mag shouldn't move like that. It does take a surprisingly large amount of Mag to pull your numbers up, but it shouldn't decrease rapidly. I don't know what could be consuming it?

Seems like a good question for Randy Holmes Farley over at R2R.
 
T

troublemaker

Member
I unfortunately have nothing right now to compare my Mag tests, just a single Elos kit that has been flawless, but isn't infallible. I need to place an order for test kits, so another brand might be an option.
 
I

Illinijoe

TeamCR
Sawdonkey said:
Is your Mag tester accurate? Mag shouldn't move like that. It does take a surprisingly large amount of Mag to pull your numbers up, but it shouldn't decrease rapidly. I don't know what could be consuming it?

Seems like a good question for Randy Holmes Farley over at R2R.
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My experience with Mag has been the same. had to use a bunch to move it up but once I got to where I wanted to get to it goes down slowly. Took me 6 weeks to go from 1050 to 1350 using seachem reef advantage dosing 2 x week. First few weeks it didnt move at all. Using a salifert test kit. also used a red sea test kit. numbers came out about the same.
 
ninjamyst

ninjamyst

Premium member
troublemaker said:
I switched back recently from AF to Salinity.

New kits are already ordered
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Why the switch? I am about to switch from Reef Crystals to AF.....

I know in the past with just RC, my parameters are all over the map because RC mixes with very high alk and calcium. Now I do a mix of RC and regular IO. How closely does your new saltwater mix match your current tank parameters?
 
IHaveCrabs

IHaveCrabs

Premium member
troublemaker said:
I unfortunately have nothing right now to compare my Mag tests, just a single Elos kit that has been flawless, but isn't infallible. I need to place an order for test kits, so another brand might be an option.
Click to expand...
Are you in the West Suburbs? Happy to test your mg for you.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk
 
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