Mag is 1500-1600??

[VacavilleFC]

so let me preface this. for the last few days possibly a week or so ive noticed alot less activity from my snails. I have ALOT like dozens of dwarf cerith which usually are allover the glass at night, normal cerith, planaxis,stomatella,trochus,astrea,nassarius,3 conchs, a couple quarter sized limpets, 2 turbos, handful of nerite. rocks and frag racks looking little dirty, tiny bit of GHA popping up.


before noticing the snails, i thought my phosphate crept up, tested definitely high at .55, ordered a sachet of phosguard and put it in on the 8th. couple days later tests at .40 and then .44 a day after that. pulled phosguard and ordered some gfo that'll be here Saturday.

thats when I noticed the lack of snail activity and decided to run all the tests since I just got my hanna checkers and new reagents in.
and also when I noticed my mag was off the chart on the salifert test and required an additional .2ml reagent to to get it to change color (tested twice) so roughly 1500-1600

I remembered reading about something like this years ago l, so down the rabbit hole I went. high levels of magnesium can paralyze snails, and its even used in labs when studying them.

only thing i can think of is its the AFR, but even that ive been dosing at half the recommended starting dose of 10ml a day for my volume(about 60g)

dont think its my salt, hadn't done a water change in over a month. did one yesterday though

any thing I could be missing? or thoughts?

 

[Bruce Spiegelman]

Yes. Higher than 1350 or so can affect invertebrates (and more) and can create additional imbalances. I know of many reefers who swear that keeping Mag between 1400-1500 promotes much faster coral growth and isn't detrimental, but it can also lead to mistakes going over that amount. Probably not a huge deal at 1500, but it sounds like it's possible you're way over that amount.

Simple solution. Dilution's the solution. Significant water change over the next week (slowly). Do 3 or 4.

 

[Bruce Spiegelman]

so let me preface this. for the last few days possibly a week or so ive noticed alot less activity from my snails. I have ALOT like dozens of dwarf cerith which usually are allover the glass at night, normal cerith, planaxis,stomatella,trochus,astrea,nassarius,3 conchs, a couple quarter sized limpets, 2 turbos, handful of nerite. rocks and frag racks looking little dirty, tiny bit of GHA popping up.


before noticing the snails, i thought my phosphate crept up, tested definitely high at .55, ordered a sachet of phosguard and put it in on the 8th. couple days later tests at .40 and then .44 a day after that. pulled phosguard and ordered some gfo that'll be here Saturday.

thats when I noticed the lack of snail activity and decided to run all the tests since I just got my hanna checkers and new reagents in.
and also when I noticed my mag was off the chart on the salifert test and required an additional .2ml reagent to to get it to change color (tested twice) so roughly 1500-1600

I remembered reading about something like this years ago l, so down the rabbit hole I went. high levels of magnesium can paralyze snails, and its even used in labs when studying them.

only thing i can think of is its the AFR, but even that ive been dosing at half the recommended starting dose of 10ml a day for my volume(about 60g)

dont think its my salt, hadn't done a water change in over a month. did one yesterday though

any thing I could be missing? or thoughts?

Also, though -- what salt mix?

 

[VacavilleFC]

Also, though -- what salt mix?

IO reef crystals.

thinking about grabbing a purple bag and just doing a 2-5g change to drop the mag a bit.

 

[VacavilleFC]

Yes. Higher than 1350 or so can affect invertebrates (and more) and can create additional imbalances. I know of many reefers who swear that keeping Mag between 1400-1500 promotes much faster coral growth and isn't detrimental, but it can also lead to mistakes going over that amount. Probably not a huge deal at 1500, but it sounds like it's possible you're way over that amount.

Simple solution. Dilution's the solution. Significant water change over the next week (slowly). Do 3 or 4.

sps growth like my digitata have been crazy the last couple weeks.

 

[PjFish]

What temp you running?