# advice



## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

what am i doing wrong here , i have a salt water tank apporx 6 months running a 29 bio cube .i have 2 small clowns in the tank 1 dragnet goby not sure if thats the right name small brown and white guy . and one damsel and can not get out of the tank grrrrrrr.i have live rock and carib sand . i also have many hermit crabs and the cone shaped ones as well 
my water measurements are as follows 
A=0
NO3=0 ----5.0 was a typo sorry 
NO2=0
P.H=7.8
K.H= 143.2 
CA=420
MG=840
FROM WHAT I UNDERSTAND MY KH AND CA ARE OK or within tolerances 
my MG IS LOW FROM WHAT I AM READING IT SHOULD BE A MIN OF 1300, what am i doing wrong i am noticing my one anvil coral seems to be shrinking and not doing well any ideas would be greatly appreciated 
thanks 
tom


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## 50seven (Feb 14, 2010)

Are you running a refugium? You should get the nitrates down; having a refugium as large as you can will really help. 

Sent from my HTC Magic using Tapatalk


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

*Advice*

5.0 was a typo just went and redid test ---- 0 was the result sorry ---

imnot sure what u mean by a refugium this is a bio cube and it has three compartments in the back of the tank , one for th eskimmer , one for filter , one which i have live rocks and some wilting cheato which i am gonna go and get tonite , and the other i believe is where the pump is .


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

*coral advice*

Ok anyone with any ideas on how to get my MG up on my 
Tank I'd rather not have to add chemicals but if I have to 
That's kewl .
Do I need to remove the dying coral its totaly dissapearing 
And looks as if there's a slime coating on it
Any ideas 
Thanks 
Tom


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## Holidays (Apr 18, 2010)

whats MG? magnesium? for corals? I use the total reef once a week during water change...everything looks healthy. I have a 15 gal tank with 8 gal refug


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

yes MG is magnesium


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## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

You must get the Mg up or you will lose the coral. For the ease and expediency get Kent Tech-M/Brightwell Magnesion for now.

While you are working on getting the Mg up, I'm sure there are members here that has bulk MgCl to share/dontate/sell to you.

Not to worry, you aren't doing anything blatantly wrong, right now, your system is requiring more Mg than your salt mix can supply.

As you are getting the Mg up, you have to do it slowly, no more than 100mg/L per day or you will throw off Ca and alk.

Good luck and hope the coral pulls through.


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

i am 100 percent sure th ecoral is dead there are only like say a dozen or so of the ends should i remove it willit leak any toxins into the water im gonna go to store tonite to get that product thanks 
tom


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

What do you mean by " can not get out of the tank grrrrrrr". Some of my corals also shrinking, but others from the same group are growing like hell. In my uneducated opinion it is very difficult to put all corals in the proper place (light, flow). I can not say anyting about your chemistry, since I have no clue about it.

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## BettaBeats (Jan 14, 2010)

your pH seems to be a bit low. 
Honestly, and this may be bad to say (i only have soft corals), but I tested my tank when I first got it, and I haven't tested it since aside from the Specific Gravity/Salinity. I should test it, and I will this week.

But you probably have SPS and LPS. 

Also, the lights on the BioCubes are usually not that good for growing SPS. most people redo the lighting completely on the cube. I know I would if I ever upgraded.

How long has your tank been running? You might want to look into reef crystals.


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

hey greg remember how hard the damsels were to get out of your tank thats what i mean . everything seemed to be doing good till a few weeks ago i started to notice that they were shrinking the ones that u gave me as well , so something is not right i am gonna try to get my magnesium level up to 1300 and go from there 
thanks 
tom


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

So I went to big als last nite and purchased the product 
WTAC reccomended I dosed last nite with the necc treatment
Today I did a chk and no diff in the MG reading 
All my other readings were the same as prev . Except for my 
Calcium which went up too 520 from 420


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

ok so i was i was told that the API TEST KIT that i have is not a accurate test 
i had a salifert test kit KH/ALK TEST KIT , i performed the test and these are my results 
kh=8.0
alk =2.86 
acording to the test kit 8.0 is natural sea water and alkality is within specs 
iwill go out tommorow and get a calcium test kit from salifert 
any rec would be greatly appreciated 
thanks 
tom


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

While you are at it, test your phosphates.


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

do they have a phospate test kit do u rec the API or the salifert


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

Salifert is more accurate, but if you already have an API kit that should suffice.

Phosphate should be "0".


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

so why would my MG be so low , and why did my calcium raise from dosing with the kent product that was rec in this post should i do another massive water change , should i be adding anything else


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## Chris S (Dec 19, 2007)

I'm not even going to fathom a guess as to what chemistry is or is not taking place in your tank.

Are you sure you are dosing magnesium and not calcium, or an all in one "calcium, magnesium, strontium" mix? Brightwell has a product like this called "Kalk 2+". Which product did you purchase and dose?

Now that you (I am assuming) have good test kits for calcium, kH (alkalinity) and magnesium, I would suggest testing them all again to get accurate readings.

As with anything, I don't really suggest dosing anything unless you understand what it is you are dosing - so you should do a bit of reading up on the importance of these three major elements (ca, mg, kh).


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

*product*

the product i am using is by KENT MARINE 
tech m magnesium 
the test kit for MG is made by sera


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## carmenh (Dec 20, 2009)

This article will teach you a TON about reef chemistry and the relationship between Ca/alk/Mg in understandable language... The whole series is well worth reading...

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-06/rhf/index.php


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## wtac (Mar 17, 2006)

Carmenh's link pretty much sums it up in the Calcium Carbonate and Magnesium section of the article.

Don't stress too much about the Ca jumping up, it's not uncommon for Ca to jump to 500mg/L starting from a low Mg level.

"The magnesium ions have altered the surface in a way that does not hold calcium and carbonate as strongly, and so the "off" rate of any newly landing calcium and carbonate ions is higher (Figure 10). Consequently, even if the driving force to deposit calcium carbonate is still there, the magnesium has gotten in the way and doesn't allow it to happen (or keeps it from happening as fast)."

It's part of the process coming from such a low Mg level. The reason for the Mg not rising is that the demand for Mg is that significant. Once the Mg gets back up, the Ca will stabilize.

Just keep an eye on alk as that's going to be the troublesome parameter if that goes out of whack. Be patient as it has to be a gradual process.

HTH


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

*results*

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

here are my results as of this am , have only dosed with kent marine product 2 days 29ml each day ,water change , and added fresh batch of cheato 
-----------------
salinity = 1.022
A=0
NO3=0
NO2=0
P.H=8.0
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API TEST KIT RESULTS 
CA=460
KH=161.1
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SALIFERT KH/ALK
KH=5.12
ALK=3.882
-------------------
SERA TEST KIT 
MG=1020


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

your salinity is low and it can also affect corals

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## 50seven (Feb 14, 2010)

sig said:


> your salinity is low and it can also affect corals


Yeah, try to get it back up to 1.025 or 1.026

But deal with the other stuff too.


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## tom g (Jul 8, 2009)

*salinity*

yes dealing with it as we speak 
thanks guys


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