Magnesium levels.

[tmscott89]

Just curious what everyone keeps magnesium levels at for their corals? And how high might be too high to introduce corals.

 

[road_runner]

Just curious what everyone keeps magnesium levels at for their corals? And how high might be too high to introduce corals.

Good range between 1250 to 1400. At least that's what I shot for

 

[tmscott89]

Yeah, I’ve seen that number pretty much on every box to so I figured that was the safe zone. Just didn’t know if anyone had success with higher levels. I’m not sure if I trust my test kit either. Calcium is right around 500 however magnesium reads somewhere in the 1800 range I’m gonna assume since it’s off my charts.

 

[road_runner]

Yeah, I’ve seen that number pretty much on every box to so I figured that was the safe zone. Just didn’t know if anyone had success with higher levels. I’m not sure if I trust my test kit either. Calcium is right around 500 however magnesium reads somewhere in the 1800 range I’m gonna assume since it’s off my charts.

I have ran 1900 mag in the past when I was naive enough trying to treat bryopsis with mag elevation. I did not see I'll effect on the coral other than high precipitation on the ca and alk.
At high levels alk and ca start to precipitat.

Randy holms have done some amazing articles about this and other common and uncommon reef aquaria parameters I highly recommend you give it a read. Wealth of informstions this guy have provided to us reefers.

But i will say this
I do not think it's well documented the long term effect if elevated mag. Natural sea levels are our north star when we do not have enough real studies rather than anecdotal or unsubstantiated data here and there...

 

[tmscott89]

Awesome! Thanks for the tip! Also my nitrates are reading somewhere between 30-40, I’m assume since corals feed off nitrates it’s not a problem having it this high to introduce a coral with?

 

[road_runner]

Awesome! Thanks for the tip! Also my nitrates are reading somewhere between 30-40, I’m assume since corals feed off nitrates it’s not a problem having it this high to introduce a coral with?

Hmm depend on the coral. It can be high.
Good no3 to shot for is is less than 5 for Lps and less than 1 for sps depend on sensitivity of the coral.

 

[tmscott89]

Hmm wonder if I should carbon dose my tank for a bit to get it down before buying any corals. I have also noticed now that I finally have a decent light for my tank that I don’t have a ton of purple coraline algae on my rocks. I was thinking about dosing some purple tech for that but the problem is that also has magnesium in it which not sure if I should elevate that anymore

 

[tmscott89]

Another reason I’m not sure to trust my test kit. If my calcium is really 500 and mag 1800ish, I would have thought coraline algae would be thriving

 

[road_runner]

Hmm wonder if I should carbon dose my tank for a bit to get it down before buying any corals. I have also noticed now that I finally have a decent light for my tank that I don’t have a ton of purple coraline algae on my rocks. I was thinking about dosing some purple tech for that but the problem is that also has magnesium in it which not sure if I should elevate that anymore

Worst thing you can do is to start randomly try things. Carbon dosing can be dangerous if not well planned. Just adding carbon can mess thing up long term. It might bring down your no3 so quick that will hurt the coral.
If you want help i recommemd we start by understanding your system exactly so we put a plan together

We can start by knowing your;
Your parameters
System age
System filtration
System equipments
System dosing
Pictures will be helpful as well.

Resist following every random advice here and there. Put a plan together and double down on it instead if trying to treat symptoms let's treat the root cause

 

[tmscott89]

Well I don’t have any coral yet, right now it’s a FOWLR. I’ve had the tank for roughly 6 months but nitrates only been that high for the last month or so. I have a 90 gallon tank with 30 gallon sump/fuge. Coralife 125 skimmer. 3 power heads in tank, one in sump. At this point I have no dosing going on. Only thing I put in my tank daily is food. But again not much is in the tank right now. Solid clean up crew and 10 assorted fish.

 

[tmscott89]

 

[tmscott89]

300 w heater, green killing machine uv sterilizer as well. Sterilizer has been on for about a 1.5-2 weeks because I recently bought my yellow tang

 

[road_runner]

Why do not you start a new thread so we walk you through a plan and it will be useful to others as well
Start the thread and put all your informstions and pictures. We will take it from there