Magnesium off the charts, help!

[Boboe77]

I have a 38 gallon mixed reef tank and I'm using Red Sea's pro salt, I've checked my CA,ALK, and Mag and the my CA is about 500 ppm. My ALK is 8.4 DKH and my magnesium is so high it's off the charts! My corals seem fine and I've gotten some growth the past week. How can I get theses parameters back where it should be? Thanks guys!

 

[backpack]

water changes with standard salt. leave
he coral geared stuff in the bucket.

 

[kuansreef]

Mag. a bit high is fine. How's the number?

 

[redfishbluefish]

My first suggestion is to have a fellow reefer verify the numbers (or an LFS).


At what specific gravity are you mixing your salt, and what are you using to measure SG? If you are mixing at 1.025 (35 ppt), the calculated mag level is 1430, (with a calculated calcium of 480).

The other thought is if you have a bucket, are you rolling the bucket to mix the salt before taking it to mix with the water. If you don’t mix the salt bucket, the “fines” settle out. So the bottom of the bucket is high in things like magnesium.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Get some Instant Ocean Salt mix and do a few water changes with that. That salt mixes out low on all the numbers.

 

[Boboe77]

Ok sounds good! My salinity is high at 0.1035. I just mixed some salt with a sg of 0.1025, should I do a Waterchange?

 

[afamousjohnson]

Thats the gravity # your looking for but as your doing your waterchanges make sure your changing that salt level slowely. You dont want to go from 35 to 25 over night but rather spread it out. You can also test your waterchange water to see the real levels of mag you are adding as I believe you will get different #'s with different salts. Not a magic # acrossed the boards

Also just went thru this myself with almost the same #'s(except gravity) but in the end my mag test was bad. So always double check

 

[Reefing Madness]

What salt did you mix up?

 

[Boboe77]

All I have is Red Sea coral pro salt and I mixed it at 1.025 when my tank is 1.035

 

[Reefing Madness]

That will bring down the SG some, but not the Mag.

 

[Boboe77]

So I should get some instant ocean salt Maybe? Would switching salt suddenly make my corals unhappy?

 

[Reefing Madness]

Wouldn't make your corals unhappy, it will allow you to bring your numbers back into the normal ranges. I use Instant Ocean, and dose what the tank needs.

 

[Boboe77]

Ok awesome! Do you have any salt brands you would prefer?

 

[Reefing Madness]

All depends on what you want to accomplish. Reef Crystals is a big name, and very good salt to use. Instant Ocean, if you want to maintain all the numbers yourself.

 

[Boboe77]

Ok I just mixed up some instant ocean so it should soon bring down the #s. I did a water change 4 days ago, do you think it would be alright if I do another water change?

 

[SteelerMike]

How did your salinity get to 1.035? I had the same issue (high mag) using RCP and I use the regular Red Sea salt now. It mixes up much lower. I would definitely go slowly when brining your salinity down as too quick of a drop could be big shock to your system

 

[Boboe77]

I think my ATO stopped working and i accidentally refilled with saltwater.

 

[Mike J.]

I'll suggest that you take 1/2 gallon of water out of the tank twice a day (morn and night) and replace with top off water until you get your SG down to 1.025 and then do another water change.

 

[Boboe77]

Ok ill do that! My acros aren't happy and my setosa isent happy eather so hopefully they will perk up.

 

[MistaOrange]

Red sea coral pro is fine I use it with no issues but your sg is way too high I reckon you drop the sg slowly. Set you skimmer to run wet & just top up with RO it's safer that way & won't shock your system & harm your LS. Dropping salinity too fast can do more harm than good, remember in this hobby params should increase & decrease slowly.