New to Dosing Ca, Mg and Alk...and would like some advice

[daplatapus]

For what its worth, in my experience I wouldn't try dosing any Ca or dkh until my Mg was closer to 1400-1450. Your Mg levels is what's going to determine how much of your Ca and dkh will stay in solution. In my tank if my Mg is below 1300 or so my Ca or dkh won't budge no matter how much I dose. Again, that's been my experience.

[greyreef]

You having any calcium deposition on equipment? Any precipitation of calcium?
That Magnesium seems awful low, and with your sps and use of ca, agree you need to first increase mg, otherwise other parameters wont go up
Read advanced aquarist article on reef parameters farley holmes
Here is link
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php
Good luck!

[greyreef]

Mind you, if your tank looks great, dont panic too much
Go slow, be observant!

[daplatapus]

Originally Posted by greyreef

Mind you, if your tank looks great, dont panic too much
Go slow, be observant!

Agreed. If everything is alive, growing and looking good, all these numbers are just tweaking your tank, optimizing it.
And I love the BRS calculator for how much to dose for these parameters. Keep a close eye on what the recommended rise is for each parameter and raise levels slowly.

[greyreef]

Didnt see your salinity either
Lower salinity will definitly reduce mg
Thats an easy one to fix

[lastlight]

Agreed on getting magnesium to 1350 - 1400 before you bother adding the other two. They likely won't balance properly if magnesium is that low.

And I think it's on the BRS site but I'm pretty sure it's recommended to not raise alk more than 1 dkH a day and calcium 10ppm?

If my levels are low i follow those guidelines.

[RPatsula]

Thank you everyone for your replies. Yes my salinity went down a little bit, it used to be at 1.026 and it went down to 1.02 due to a water problem I had about three weeks ago. I am slowly bringing it back up. I do not have any calcium deposits on my equipment or any calcium precipitation. I am still skimming fairly wet, to get rid of my algae problem. I will just dose the magnesium to begin with and get it back to an acceptable level. I think I will do it fairly slowly and introduce the magnesium back in over a period of five days. All my corals are still looking good. I had a green hair algae breakout on my sand bed but I think that was due to overfeeding with my plankton.
I will also look over the articles you suggested as well. Sometimes it just gets a little bit overwhelming as well as confusing but I am slowly learning. I will post again once I have started adding the magnesium.

Thank you
Rick