Every day?

Sorry the reason I ask is I'm sort of going through the same motions of trying to get a handle of the rate of consumption of Mg in my tanks. Either Mg is a lot lower than what I think it is going in, or the rate of consumption is a LOT higher than what I thought it was. I went through an entire bottle of TA Mg in one week and only raised Mg about 100ish which when you're starting at 900 and want to end up at 1300-1400 is not quite enough. I ordered new Mg from Chemmaster on the board and am now dosing that directly. Previously I had only used his Mg on water change water but I had run out so I had to buy some more, it came last week so as of now I'm seeing how much of that I can add to the tanks to see how much will raise Mg by how much and all that.

Mmmm blond tang!

So you were home for all that time and you don't have any photos to share? Ahem...Doug, you owe us photos...

I can't be bothered to fiddle around with my Mg. levels. I just have some of that Fauna Marin mag stuff for Ca. reactors. Its kind of like plug and play, but its less bothersom. I'm always around 1250-1350 depending on what is going on in the tank. I do give the two of you kuddos for trying to figure it out.

How are you determining if its because you have low Mg. levels to begin with, or because of consumption?

I have some mag chips that could be run in a reactor but I guess for it to be useful I probably ought to run a reactor. I just figure it's not worth dialing in a reactor on a tank that should be shutdown any day now. Yes, yes I know I'm slow on a tank build. It's been mentioned once or twice. People may think I don't notice but I notice. :lol:

But even still, I'm now starting to wonder if consumption can be significant. I always took the viewpoint that if my water change water was OK then my tank would be OK because I figured consumption was nowhere near that of Ca and Alk. But maybe not.

I guess the short answer is (if you were asking me that is, and sorry Doug for the hijack) I hope to find that out by testing my water change water. If it's high or normal then I know it is an issue of consumption that needs to be addressed with dosing (or a reactor that outputs Mg). Although I suspect a reactor with mag chips only "sort of" deals with replenishing Mg, I'm not sure you can really tune a reactor 2 ways - ie., one vectror to maintain Ca/Alk and another vector to maintain Mg - I would assume all 3 would be output proportional to one another so if Mg depletion isn't directly proportional to Ca and Alk depletion then it stands to reason you'd still have to occasionally do some correctional Mg dosing, or adjustments via water changes (ie., add Mg to makeup water to help elevate after a waterchange or whatever).

I will say that I'm surprised how much Mg it takes to raise the levels. Makes me wonder if there is indeed Mg consumption going on .. but I dunno ??

So at least in my case it's a case of the salt to blame for the depressed Mg. I tested the Mg out of a new batch (RBS of all things) and came up with 825. I'm sort of stunned, all this time I've been doing water changes like crazy and I've been bringing my Mg down because of it. Whoops.

That dosing regiment is indeed everyday. I have not yet tested my make up water to see if that is the culprit. After Tony's posts I am pretty sure it will test out low as I too am using KZRB salt. I had decided about a week ago that I would switch to the Deltec salt after reading some of the reviews and tests done on it. Most people seem to be pretty happy with it, with the only complaint being that it mixes up slightly dirty. I plan on mixing the H2Ocean with the KZ to slowly phase it in, but will test the first batch before I mix in the KZ and post my results. Im a little nervous about switching salts as aside from the algae trouble the tank seems to be doing well. I cant resist the lure of a shiny new salt that is being billed as "bang on" as far as Ca and Mg levels. I also like idea that it is a natural salt as opposed to a synthetic.

No new pics for you Catherine:sad:. The idea was, to get the tank cleaned up and presentable and take a round of pics, but one of my ballasts in my tek light pooped out last week so the tank is running on half wattage right now. This might actually be a good thing considering the algae. Really not impressed with my tek lights. This is the second ballast that has crapped out on me in less than a year. I think I saw that Kevin is looking into trying to get on board with ATI. If that pans out I will be ordering a power module for the tank, if not....Im gonna order a geissmann. The whole light thing has thrown my plans to upgrade the skimmer (bubbleking probably) on the back burner.

Another thing that I am not to happy with is timers for the lights. Cant anyone make a timer that lasts more than a couple months? Ive tried the coralife ones, Ive tried the no name ones(similar to the coralife), Ive tried the cheap rotary dial ones....they are all pieces of crap. If I added up all the coin Ive spent on timers, I would probably find that I could have bought a controller instead, which I am considering now. Im on the fence about which one though. After reading about Catherines (and others) troubles with the RKE, I think I have ruled that one out. So that leaves aquacontroller and the profilux. Anyone wanna chine in with experiences?

Hey Doug.. I used the digital coralife timer like this one...

http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s...t_ID=WM-ESUPCD

It has not failed on me (used for about 6 months). I still have it and am not using it if you need one we can swap for something :biggrin::biggrin:

Cheers
Lawrence

My intermatics have not failed me yet. Just make sure you get the ones that can handle the voltage as there are several that can't. I read something on it, may have been on RC. I'm sorry I don't remember where I found that article.

I've recently switched over to H2Ocean and am stoked about it. All of a sudden I'm noticing good growth in between each water change, and I'm not having to dose as much Ca or Mag.

Oh no I'm not falling for that again. As soon as I buy a bucket they will suddenly all lose their Mg and it'll still be my fault for not stating the proper incantation before opening the lid or something. Randi I didn't realize you were part of the world conspiracy. Next you're going to tell me you have peppermints eat all the hundreds of aiptasia in your tank overnight, or emerald crabs clean up valonia .. or .. or .. oh never mind. I'm going to go put on my tinfoil hat now so you can't hear my thoughts anymore!

did you try the vodka with the Dinos? Seriously, mine were GONE in a matter of 2 days.
I've never tried pepermint shrimp, as I don't have aiptasia in my tanks (Mwahahahahaha)

But I'll let you know if I ever need to