Corals devouring magnesium!

[Miami Reef]

Last week we bought A LOT of LPS corals. When I say a lot...it’s a lot.

Anyway, I’ve been checking my parameters frequently and I noticed that calcium and alk has been relatively staying the same. It took about a week for alk to go from 8.6 to 7.9dkh with my hannah checker. The calcium has stayed the same at 460ppm.

Magnesium was 1350ppm a few days ago but today I checked and it was only 1150! How? What??

I dosed my magnesium supplement. But why are these corals enjoying magnesium so much?

 

[tehmadreefer]

Wasn’t your lfs’s test machine measured at 1150 a few days ago or last week? If so, well remember how I said who’s test kits to trust? The lfs or yours? Well there ya go!

 

[blasterman]

Not possible.

Mag only gets depleted with calcium. Can't just fall while calcium remains constant.

Wet tests kits are notoriously vague when it comes to reading magnesium, so either your first test was off or this one. Try mixing up some fresh salt mix and see what it reads. That will tell you if its actually being depleted or not.

 

[Miami Reef]

What do you mean “wet test kit”

I use salifert for magnesium

 

[Miami Reef]

Actually. I checked back on my previous tests. It appears calcium was 450 then went to 435 and then it went to 460. I don’t remember dosing calcium but I did does strontium. Does that count?