A few problems and Q's

If only I had a little scale to see how much I'm putting in. One thing is for sure and that is that the number of tea spoons I was puting in there were not enough. I added 1 cup of epsom salts to 1 gallon of RO water today and will gradually dump it in throughout the rest of the day. I will do this also with my top off water, but will add 1 cup every 5 gallons instead. I'm sure I will need more than that, but I'll take it slow. I've read about the chemical ion imbalance that they can cause, but it says that is usually when people do not perform water changes. I have a good salt mix and do 5 gallons a week (used to do 10 a week, but it apparently is too much). Many other people claimed to never have a problem.... still... I'm taking it slow and letting it grow
I'll buy seachem's magnesium once I've reached the target (1500) to further maintain the level.

I dosed the stuff as recommended and just like Crimson Ghost said, nothing really happened. So I added a few extra drops and they started going nuts. I was extracting them with pipette as they were getting weaker and climbing up the glass. I'm sure some of them made it to the DT since I saw a few coming out of the rocks and freaking out as well. This product works very well. I'm now running about 2 pounds of Kent Marine active Carbon to make sure I'll have nothing to worry about later, my skimmer is on and I'll keep close watch on the tank for the next 6 hours or so.

I'll be very happy when I don't have to extract any more flat worms. I've been doing it for about a months since we ID them here on the forum.

Thanks for your help!

- Magnus.

 

Hey friend I'll wiegh out a pound later and then measure it in cups and let you know how much is a cup or cups.

 

And there you go again, being so helpful. I really love this forum. And I really appreciate your friendship and your help so much! Here's a big THANK YOU! It is thanks to people like you, that beginners like me have a change to start over and not give up on such a specialized hobby.

- Magnus.

 

NEVER GIVE UP! Quitting is a weak persons crutch! It'll be a couple hours before I can get the info to you but I'll git r done tonight.

 

Take your time. I've had this Mg issue raising it up for a while, so, no rush.

Thanks again.

- Mag.

 

When I mixed the magnesium salts from bulk reef supply, I used 8 cups (5 were magnesium chloride, 3 were magnesium sulfate), and it makes a gallon total. It comes out to 5.4 ounces of the solution needed to raise 10 gallons by 200ppm.

 

Alright. By the wieght given to me on my Postal Scale a pound of Epsom is roughly 2 1/4 cups. I say roughly because my measuring cup and yours might not wiegh the same, the brand of Epsom salt you buy may contain more moisture etc. But that should give you a basis for figuiring exactly how many cups you need to mix in a gallon of ro to make your solution.
If you need further help don't hesitate to ask here or send me a pm.

 

How many gallons is your system. Sump, dt..everything. Also the weight of your rock and sand in the dt and sump.

 

Awesome! I'll be able to calculate more precisely the amount of Epsom Salt I need to mix. Now, with the calculator and the estimated weight, I know that I need approximately 261.3 grams or 9.2 oz to raise my magnesium by 100 ppm (705.7 grams; 24.8 oz to reach my goal of 1500 ppm) in my 70 gallon total water volume.

I have a 55 gallon tank, with approximately 50# of Live rock and 70# of sand, the fuge is a 30 long, with approximately 20gallons of water, DSB is aboug 30# and consists of live sand, mixed with 100% kitty clay and crushed coral on top for my pods to hide and get naughty

I've calculated my skimmer to add 1 gallon of extra water volume when is on.
This was all very confusing and difficult to estimate, since I've never measure exactly how much water I was adding when I set up the tank with sand and fuge like I should have done. But with the help of some of the calculator online for volume and volume replaced by Live Rock, I would say my calculations are somewhat close.

I'll be dosing 11 cups of epsom salts to reach my goal in 3 doses of ~ 3.5 cups each.

Thank you for the help. This has helped me so much.... I was adding teaspoons at a time and It was going to take for ever!

On a different note; I had to re-dose my tank today for flatworms. I went a few drops more than the recommended last time, but I was able to find a few survivors today in the morning. So I did what Cimson Ghost recommended and added nearly double the dose. My pods seem to be fine and none of my livestock seem to be freaking out. I'm getting my replacement bulbs today (ups says it's out for delivery! Hurray!!) that Night-Rida chose for me. He was very helpful with it and I can't wait to see what the results are. I'm getting:

1 x 54W 11000K Aquablue Plus T5 HO Fluorescent (GSM0013) by Giesemann
2 x 54W Blue Plus T5 HO Fluorescent (ATI1013) by ATI
1 x 54W 75/25 14000K AquaBlue T5 HO Fluorescent (UVL0029) by UV Lighting

I had talked to Night-Rida about the different combination on how to place them in the fixture, but the chat we had got erased when the chat bar reset. So I'll have to bug him again about that. I appreciate your inputs as well. I believe the new bulbs will definitely help my corals a lot and should see a rather quick change on my tank's development.

My future irresponsible buy will be another 40 or 50 punds of dead rock from John. Probably next month. And I'll be using Dingo's idea from his aquascaping video contest submission.

Lots of changes coming. Can't wait to see them happen!

- Mag.