Magnesium additives

palmerc said:
A drip system would work just fine, but is not necessary.

You can even mix it up in your auto-top off resevoir (as long as you still try not to exceed 100ppm added per day - a bit more than this would not be too serious though, but slower is always better).

Clinton
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clinton,do you mean it can also be mixed in a kalk stirrer and connected to an auto top up?and is it the powder?
 
mekaeel said:
clinton,do you mean it can also be mixed in a kalk stirrer and connected to an auto top up?and is it the powder?
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Mekaeel, you can NOT do it this way if you are running your RO top-off through a kalk stirrer first - the high pH will precipitate all the magnesium.

Only if you are topping up with pure RO water, can you try this, but like I said earlier it is not really necessary.

It does not matter whether it is a powder or liquid, powder is just more concentrated so you won't have to use as much to get same results.

Clinton
 
HI all,
A bit off topic, but may be useful. I use an additive called Grotech Magnesium. Not sure if available in SA. It is addeded to the Ca reator and works in the same way as Ca media, disolving slowly over time.
I find it much easier than dosing all the time.
HTH,
Neil
 
irie ivan said:
Using a good salt or nsw to do a few water changes is best to raise your levels, and is also more balanced than suppliments.
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Agreed - water changes ARE the best supplement, and the best way to correct for any imbalance. Unfortunately it is also expensive, cumbersome, and has some risk if doing large changes, as would be necessary in most cases.

... I would think adding chloride and sulfate in a balanced ratio would still cause these two elements to be unbalanced {in excess} with other ions???)
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True, but the ratio of chloride is so huge compared to all other elements (except of course sodium - the other half of sodium chloride = table salt) that even large doses of e.g. magnesium chloride would have a negligable effect. Sulpher is much less abundant, but is still the 4th largest "ingredient" of sea water, and that is why one or two large "corrections" using Epsom salts has negligible effect on the SO4 ratio. It's only when used regularly over a long period that the sulpher (sulphate...) ratio will go seriously wrong.

I believe there is some merit in doing one or two larger water changes per year to correct for this type of imbalance - e.g. if you normally do a 10% per month change, do a 25% change once a year - just make sure the change water EXACTLY matches your tank water as far as possible (at least for SG, temp, pH and alk.)

Typical additives only raise your Mg level by 5mg or thereabouts per dose! So you gonna need a whole lotta suppliment to raise it.
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Correct - I don't have the exact figures on hand, but one must add something like 100 grams of Epsom salt per 100 liter of tank water to raise the magnesium level from 1100 to 1200 - scary if you're doing it the first time.

As an interesting aside: Magnesium chloride is used as an anaesthtic for fish - so don't be surprised if your fish all go to sleep after you've boosted your magnesium ;) (actually, the concentration used for anaesthesia is *much* larges than in our tanks, but it is still a good idea to rather split the dose into a few smaller ones...)

Using the calciumreactor with aragonite as opposed to synthetic media does help to maintain MG, but I have found that it does drift slowly downwards.
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A better solution is to add about 10% crushed dolomite sand to the reactor.

Hennie
 
If using calcium chloride and epson salts would the chloride and sulphate not balance out?
 
It would help Alan, but the relative quantities of calcium vs magnesium added will still give you a small shortfall in sulphate over time. I don't think this is too much of a problem anyway.

In case you did not know you cannot mix calcium chloride and magnesium sulphate together in one container - forms insoluble calcium sulphate
 
It's not just those two ions which count, though. If you're adding salts, you should add them in a way which balances _all_ ions. Naturally, this is not possible because there are too many ions to keep balanced (think strontium, molybdenum, iron, sulphides, iodates etc).

The "improved two part" supplement adds salts in a way which roughly keeps the top 7 most common ions in balance. This is a reasonable compromise.

The chloride from the calcium chloride and the sodium from the sodium carbonate balance just as if you'd added regular sodium chloride but free up calcium ions and carbonate ions in the process.
 
palmerc said:
In case you did not know you cannot mix calcium chloride and magnesium sulphate together in one container - forms insoluble calcium sulphate
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Thanks, did not know this, as you know i turned the reactor off awhile ago and have been adding manually and must say it has been going very nicely, not as difficult as i thought it would be, just fairly tedious. Thanks for the tip, luckily i am in the habit of adding everything separately and drip them into the system.
 
robvdv said:
...Sulphates are one of the most common ions found in seawater. The top seven, in order,[SIZE=-1] are sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, chloride, sulfate, and bicarbonate.[/SIZE]
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Umm... not in order of abundance...

The correct order for natural seawater (in parts per million) are:

Chlorine (Cl): 19,500
Sodium (Na): 10,770
Magnesium (Mg): 1,290
Sulphur (S): 905
Calcium (Ca): 412
Potassium (K): 380
Bromine (Br): 67
Carbon (C): 28
Nitrogen (N): 11.5

Hennie
 
Not confusing, but yes, I was referring to elements (such as sulpher...), whilst Randy's list which you've quoted is referring to molecules (ions...), such as sulphate (SO4). No big deal, though, we are both correct if you do the maths.
 
If I want to use Epsom salts to increase my magnesium levels, am I correct in my understanding that for 1000 litres of water I will need to add 1kg of epsom salts to increase my magnesium level by 100ppm?
 
viper357 said:
If I want to use Epsom salts to increase my magnesium levels, am I correct in my understanding that for 1000 litres of water I will need to add 1kg of epsom salts to increase my magnesium level by 100ppm?
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Yup - 986.4g to be exact, according to this calculator.
 
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