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Magnesium problems

greybolt03

greybolt03

Ok so here is my situation 7weeks ago I had neck surgery and was out of commission for a few weeks. I couldn't do water changes for 4 weeks. Right before I set up dosers for my all & cal my levels prior to surgery were 9 alk,440cal,
1350 mag..
I've been doing water changes for 3 weeks now with reef crystals salt..
Once I was able to get back to water changes I tested again my alk is 10.3,cal 440, mag is undetectable(using Red Sea kit)So i mixed up some BRS mag and dosed 2 gallons over 2 weeks still doing weekly water changes and still have undetectable mag levels.
 
Zippy69

Zippy69

Use a different brand of testing kit or see how old your current kit is. With Mag at trace levels I would find it hard to keep the Ca and Alk levels where they are. When I had low Mag prior to dosing my alk and Ca were always dropping regardless of the amount of dosing.
 
redfishbluefish

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
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TWO GALLONS OF MAG! IN TWO WEEKS!


STOP DOSING NOW.


I think I'm still on my first gallon of magnesium I made four or five years ago.


Something is wrong with the testing and my guess is that the Red Sea kit for magnesium requires five additions of one drop each of Reagent A, shaking for 15 seconds between each drop. I think a common mistake, especially if you just glance at the instruction card, is that you add only one drop of Reagent A and then go on to Reagent B. It was actually written up wrong on another website where I corrected the author on the "5 times" part.


Mike, let me know if you want me to come over and test using my kit.
 
ecam

ecam

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Moderator
U beat me to it. Zippy.

+1. From the little I know. It doesn't seem possible for alk and calc to stay stable with no mag.


Zippy69 said:
Use a different brand of testing kit or see how old your current kit is. With Mag at trace levels I would find it hard to keep the Ca and Alk levels where they are. When I had low Mag prior to dosing my alk and Ca were always dropping regardless of the amount of dosing.
Click to expand...
 
greybolt03

greybolt03

It's not the kit. I read instructions and do it right when I test fresh make up water it is in the 1300-1350 range I thought at first the kit was bad which is why I tested fresh made up water...
Just looked and kit doesn't exp till 2014
 
greybolt03

greybolt03

Today is my anniversary and my wife would kill me if you did but I am still not back to work so anytime tomorrow would be great
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

sorry to hear about the neck, and congrats on the anniversary. mine is coming up in 5 days. Gotta plan something...lol.
 
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