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Wanted to double check my math!


ReefSafeSolutions

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ReefSafeSolutions

Hey everyone,

 

Over the past week and a half, I've had to bring my parameters up in my tank. My magnesium and alk were pretty low (1200ppm and 5.7dKH, respectively). They're much better now:

 

Magnesium: 1360ppm

Alk: 8.1dKH

Calcium: 380-390

 

I know, they're not perfect, but I'm running an LPS dominated tank (that's the plan at least, so far, so good) so for LPS it's fine. I wouldn't mind getting my mag and calc just a bit higher, but it isn't urgent.

 

Anyways, I use seawater from the ocean and the parameters are a little low, so I need to bump things up a bit before I do a water change. We've got bottles of RedSea mag/alk/calc supplements that I'll be using. So, the main concern is mag/alk. They're at 1200ppm and probably 6.8-7dKH (I'll have to check my last test results).

 

The instructions on the magnesium bottle say 1ml = 1ppm of magnesium for 25 gallons. To increase 160ppm (1200 up to 1360) would be 160ml. However, I'm doing a 5 gallon water change, so I don't need to do 160ml. 25/5 = 5 obviously. Going to a smaller volume of water would increase the concentration, so am I correct in thinking that 1ml = 5ppm (1ppm*5 = 5ppm) for a 5 gallon bucket of water? So, basically 32ml (32*5=160)?

 

 

Likewise with the alk...the instructions on the bottle say 0.1ml = .1dKH, so 10ml = 1dKH, for 25 gallons. I think I only need to raise the alk about 1dKH, so for 5 gallons, .1ml = .5dKH, right? So I only need 0.2ml to increase 1dKH.

 

I haven't checked the calcium bottle yet but I'd assume the process would be the same. So does this math look right to everyone? I'm confident in the math but have never had to supplement water before, just want to make sure I'm not going to nuke anything.

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Your math looks correct. However, I'd recommend using a reef salt mix which you don't have to supplement. Then any dosing you need to do is in the display tank, and just to replace consumption.

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ReefSafeSolutions

Awesome, thanks for looking over everything!

 

I've thought about going back to salt mix. It's just so much easier and faster for my dad and I to get about 30 gallons of seawater at a time, and just supplement a little bit before doing a water change. I figure I'd either be measuring salt mix or measuring some supplement so it's more or less a wash.

 

I read a thread on another forum about seawater dating back several years, with several people testing parameters several times. Our tests match those results, so the seawater parameters don't change, making supplementation easy every time I do a water change.

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