Have you checked you magnesium today?

[Zacco]

Over the years I have heard a lot of people talking about how their corals never seem to grow and how they struggle to keep their calcium and alkalinity in check. When I ask them where there magnesium level's are at ,they look at me with a blank expression on their face. If your magnesium levels are low, don't expect the calcium in your salt water to do much. Magnesium ranks 5th of the 8 major elements in sea water composition while the remaining elements are considered "trace" elements. Magnesium dosing is just as important (if not more) as calcium dosing. If your Mag is low it will greatly affect the calcium absorption process of corals and other calcium loving animals. Just as and example, if kept balanced, 420ppm of calcium and 1280 ppm of magnesium, the entire 420ppm of calcium will be available to your corals. If your magnesium drops, so will the available calcium available for absorption even if it does measure 420ppm on your test kit. I personally keep my calcium at 450ppm and magnesium around 1400ppm. I just though about bringing this topic up for the people new to reef keeping world. Happy " Reefing" everyone.

 

[Swine]

Funny you brought this up. The past week I have slowly been raising my mag level. It was at 1260. But moving it up to about 1400 now

 

[Zacco]

I would also like to add that a lot of the commercial salt mixes out on the market tend to be on the low side when it comes to magnesium. I personally use Instant Ocean and have took Mag. readings as low as 900 ppm at 1.025ppt salinity.

 

[Zacco]

Swine. My corals seem to be happy around 1400ppm with good growth. I have also heard that by keeping your magnesium levels elevated (even as high as 1700ppm) it will keep nuisance algae in check. I have found this especially true using Kent Tech M magnesium.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Thats the trick though, Kent Tech M, has another ingredient that the others don't use.

 

[FlyinBryan]

I found BRS mag to be the best for tanks. I also use IO and that Mg is terrible.

 

[Zacco]

Exactly Reefing Madness. I use it along with my GFO Reactor and have not had any problems with nuisance algae since. There is something in the Kent brand that the bad algae doesn't seem to like.

 

[Swine]

I don't have any nuisance algae really. Or at least it all stays in my sump. But when my tank had MAG at 1500ppm+ I had much better growth.