Magnesium and algae

[sen5241b]

Read this recently: "You can add all the calcium and alk you want and it will not be bio available or testable if your mG is below 1100, natural seawater is 1380, I keep my systems above that and see diminished algae growths as well."

It sounds like mag can feed algae, no?

 

[daugherty]

the tank will precipate if the mag is to low. and you will have a very hard time keeping the cal and alk levels up if the mag is low. my mag was up to about 2k and i notices that the alage that i had did not hold to the rock as strong. and with a high mag you can raise your alk way up some people have noticed a huge difference with their alk up above 15

 

[tankedchemist]

Here's what magnesium does in our tanks: Reef Aquarium Water Parameters by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
(go about 1/4 of the way down the page)

SO, as far as algae goes, I know that coralline (a kind of algae) actually grows faster in the presence of higher mag levels.It doesn't make much sense to me that mag would interfere with algae growth because all the algaes in our tank are photosynthetic, and the proteins in photosythesis is a large reason organisms need magnesium... weird. Now I wanna study that. :)

 

[Rcpilot]

Mag disrupts the life cycle of nuisance algae

keep reading..........

 

[ccCapt]

There is anecdotal evidence that raising mag levels by using Kent Tech-M mag supplement will kill off nusiance algae. But it's not the high mag that does it, it's some impurity in the Kent product. The same results are not acheived using other mag supplements.

 

[sen5241b]

Here's what magnesium does in our tanks: Reef Aquarium Water Parameters by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
(go about 1/4 of the way down the page)

SO, as far as algae goes, I know that coralline (a kind of algae) actually grows faster in the presence of higher mag levels.It doesn't make much sense to me that mag would interfere with algae growth because all the algaes in our tank are photosynthetic, and the proteins in photosythesis is a large reason organisms need magnesium... weird. Now I wanna study that. :)

That is an excellent article. I never understood the relationship between cal and mag until I read that.

 

[tankedchemist]

Maybe I'll go buy some of that Kent mag supplement and screen it for toxic impurities... hm.