Finally an easy solution to bryopsis!

[wilsonh]

Originally posted by steve70
There must be some other element in Tech-M. that is working and not the magnesium.

Sulfate

[melev]

Originally posted by skeeter-doc
I understand you should obviously never dose something unless you can adequately test for it, but many people just throw in a random amount hoping to supplement their systems, ... can someone tell me what happens if you do overdose your tank's magnesium levels?

While I've never taken levels as high as some have posted in this thread (1800 to 2000ppm), little has been reported regarding any type of damage to the system. Even at 1600ppm, my reef never displayed any issues.

[skeeter-doc]

thanks Marc

[salty joe]

Is there a test for sulphate?

[sammy33]

I think I may have bryopsis and another algae that is more like a "tumbleweed". The tumbleweed algae is easy to remove almost coming off the sand and rock in clumps.

The other patches on the live rock however...must be bryopsis. Tough to pinch out with your fingers and a more dense low growth.

Here is a full tank shot showing the patches of algae. I had removed a good portion of the tumbleweed algae by hand. This is a "before" picture as I had a normal Mg level.


I have been double dosing magnesium sulfate and have incresed the Mg to 1470ppm over the last week from about 1320ppm. I am just about out of the Seachem Reef Magnesium (ingredients listed as magnesium sulfate, sodium, chloride) so I will get some Tech M and try to zap this stuff!

[jdieck]

Originally posted by salty joe
Is there a test for sulphate?

Not for salt water that I know of. Most test kits test between 70 to 200 ppm while Sulphate content in NSW is around 2700 ppm.
You may try a fresh water test kit for sulphate with a range up to 200 ppm but you will need to dilute the sample 1:19 (1 sample and 19 RO/DI or distilled water) and multiply the result by 20.

[wilsonh]

Sammy the Seachem product is only around 10% magnesium sulfate, the other 90% is magnesium chloride, quite a few others on the thread have already discovered that magnesium chloride did nothing for the algae, regardless how high they took magnesium.
Dosing the Seachem product you may think you are dosing magnesium sulfate, but in fact you just cannot get enough magnesium sulfate in there, you are not shifting the ionic balance of the tank in favour of sulfate.
Go with Tech M, or alternatively Epsom salts is 100% magnesium sulfate.

[salty joe]

If epsom salt is 100% magnesium sulphate, could you indirectly measure how much sulphate is being added by measuring the increase in mg?

[wilsonh]

Yes but someone with more chemistry knowledge than me would have to give you the formula.

Perhaps the RC chemistry forum would be a good place to ask.

[jdieck]

Epsom Salts is Magnesium Sulfate Heptahydrate which is: MgSO4·7H2O whose molecular weight is 246.4 or 246.4 grams per mol.
Ot of this total 24.3 grams is Magnesium (9.9% Mg), 96.1 grams is Sulfate (39 % SO4) and the remining 126 grams is water (51.1% H2O)

So the ratio by weight of Sulphate to Magnesium is 96.1 to 24.3 or
3.955 to 1
In other words for every 1 ppm of Magnesium you increase you will roughly increase Sulphate by 4 ppm.

As Natural Sea Water contains about 2710 ppm of Sulfate it is possible to calculate the % increase in sulfate with a one shot increase of magnesium.
This Table from one of Randy's article can give you a good comparison

Table 5. Sulfate Increase from a Single Magnesium Boost Using Magnesium Sulfate.
(Results are not corrected for salinity changes.)
Magnesium       Starting Sulfate      Final Sulfate       Sulfate Rise
Boost (ppm)&nbsp     &nbsp (ppm)nbsp;  (ppm)   (%)
      50       2710       2908
      7%
100 2710 3105 15%
200 2710 3500 29%
300 2710 3895 44%

[wilsonh]

Hmmm... Impressive Jdieck!





Would also be interesting to find out the exact level sulfate has to be to do the job although that might be hard cos you would have to know the starting sulfate.

And that is of course assuming that it actually is the sulfate that is killing the algae, although having read the whole thread & seeing what works for people it would seem that is likely.

[jdieck]

Originally posted by wilsonh
Hmmm... Impressive Jdieck!

Well the table came up all messed up but I did not have time to fix it before the system prevent me from modifications but take a look at Table 5 of the linked article.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-07/rhf/index.php

[dendro982]

I used ESV liquid magnesium and Seachem Reef Advantage Magnesium, for 3 weeks 1600 mg/l, didn't worked. Still have bryosis. Resistant kind?

And, reading from the label on the Seachem Reef Mg, at the left: "...blend of magnesium, chloride, and sulphate salts....", on the right, very fine print: "Ingredients: Magnesium sulfate, sodium chloride".

I too thought, that it is the blend of MgSo4 and MgCl2....

[jdieck]

Originally posted by dendro982
I used ESV liquid magnesium and Seachem Reef Advantage Magnesium, for 3 weeks 1600 mg/l, didn't worked. Still have bryosis. Resistant kind?

And, reading from the label on the Seachem Reef Mg, at the left: "...blend of magnesium, chloride, and sulphate salts....", on the right, very fine print: "Ingredients: Magnesium sulfate, sodium chloride".

I too thought, that it is the blend of MgSo4 and MgCl2....

Thanks that explains a lot regarding the composition of Seachem's
Given the ingredients, they are using Magnesium Sulfate but not Magnesium Chloride but instead they use Sodium Chloride. IMO as a Magnesium Supplement it has advantages and disadvantages.
The advantage is that most contaminants specially Ammonia comes from the manufacturing of Magnesium Chloride so by not using it they insure higher purity, the cons is that they need to balance the increase in Shulphate with increases in Sodium and Chloride ions something they achieve by using Sodium Chloride but this creates one pro and two cons, the pro is that they will balance sodium which supplements with magnesium chloride will not but one of the cons will be that the product will be more dilute for Magnesium so more of it is required to achieve the same Mg increase than with a supplement that contains Mg Sulfate and Mg Chloride and the second is that in large corrections it might increase salinity a little bit but I doubt in an amount noticeable by most refractometers.
So in summary it is better balanced, might be higher purity but will be more dilute.
Regarding if it affects Bryopsis it will be imposible to know, at least at this point is seems that does not which leeads me to believe that the effect on bryopsis does not come from either sulfate nor chloride but rather either the magnesium level itself or some impurity in a particular supplement or a combination of both.

[jdieck]

Originally posted by jdieck
Thanks that explains a lot regarding the composition of Seachem's
Given the ingredients, they are using Magnesium Sulfate but not Magnesium Chloride but instead they use Sodium Chloride. IMO as a Magnesium Supplement it has advantages and disadvantages.
The advantage is that most contaminants specially Ammonia comes from the manufacturing of Magnesium Chloride so by not using it they insure higher purity, the cons is that they need to balance the increase in Sulfate with increases in Sodium and Chloride ions something they achieve by using Sodium Chloride but this creates one pro and two cons, the pro is that they will balance sodium which supplements with magnesium chloride will not but one of the cons will be that the product will be more dilute for Magnesium so more of it is required to achieve the same Mg increase than with a supplement that contains Mg Sulfate and Mg Chloride and the second is that in large corrections it might increase salinity a little bit but I doubt in an amount noticeable by most refractometers.
So in summary it is better balanced, might be higher purity but will be more dilute.
Regarding if it affects Bryopsis it will be impossible to know, at least at this point is seems that does not which leads me to believe that the effect on bryopsis does not come from either sulfate nor chloride but rather either the magnesium level itself or some impurity in a particular supplement or a combination of both.

Just a note on the above. Although this formulation of Magnesium Sulfate with Sodium Chloride may balance better by adding some Sodium, given the concentration of Magnesium in Seachems Magnesium supplement of 7.97% if using Magnesium Sulfate Hexahydrate the ratio of the formulation by weight will be about 4.2 of Mg Sulfate Hexa and 1 of Sodium Chloride.
This will give a ratio of Sodium to Sulfate of about .24 to 1 when NSW is about 4:1 and a ratio of Chloride to Sulfate of 0.57 when the ratio in NSW is 7:1
If the formulation uses Magnesium Sulfate Anhydrous the ratio improves a little bit to 0.75:1 for Sodium:Sulfate and 1.16:1 for Chloride:Sulfate; still far from the required 4:1 and 7:1 to be fully balanced.
On the other hand although a supplement containing a 10:1 mix of Mag Chloride and Mg Sulfate will not contain any sodium it will balance the Chloride to Sulfate on the required 7:1 ratio.

In summary, in my opinion (and I might be wrong) although Seachem's contain some sodium and chloride ions and may reduce the risk of impurities the supplement is not necessarily better balanced than a 10:1 supplement of Mg Chloride and Mg Sulfate

[wilsonh]

I understood their formula was 10% magnesium sulfate, 90% magnesium chloride, no sodium chloride, making an ionically correct mix.

[jdieck]

Originally posted by wilsonh
I understood their formula was 10% magnesium sulfate, 90% magnesium chloride, no sodium chloride, making an ionically correct mix.

By any chance do you have a jar of the supplement and can doublecheck the Ingredients list?

[wilsonh]

No, I make my own, but when I did have the Seachem product they don't give the exact ingredients, presumably to stop someone realising how cheap the raw ingredients are compared to what they charge LOL!

I just read where someone claimed to have figured out what the mix is but long time ago I don't have a link. However a 10/90 mix Magnesium sulfate to Magnesium chloride would make sense as it does give the correct ionic balance that they claim on the jar label.

[salty joe]

[i]Originally posted which leeads me to believe that the effect on bryopsis does not come from either sulfate nor chloride but rather either the magnesium level itself or some impurity in a particular supplement or a combination of both. [/B]

But weren't there people who got the mg. way up using Mag Flake with no luck?

[jdieck]

Originally posted by wilsonh
No, I make my own, but when I did have the Seachem product they don't give the exact ingredients, presumably to stop someone realising how cheap the raw ingredients are compared to what they charge LOL!

I just read where someone claimed to have figured out what the mix is but long time ago I don't have a link. However a 10/90 mix Magnesium sulfate to Magnesium chloride would make sense as it does give the correct ionic balance that they claim on the jar label.

What makes me doubt that it is a mix of Magnesium Sulfate and Mg Chloride is the concentration of Magnesium in it.
A regular formulation of those two will have a magnesium concentration of around 11.7% but Seachem's concentration is 7.97% which makes me think there is some ingridient that does not provide magnesium (like sodium chloride)

[jdieck]

Originally posted by salty joe
But weren't there people who got the mg. way up using Mag Flake with no luck?

I really do not like to speculate but if I had to I will say not sulfate or chloride ions as Seachem and other supplements used does contain both but they still do not seem to work. My best bet will be Calcium Sulfate. A precipitate that form when making the solution and comes as impurities of both the Mg Sulfate and the Mg Chloride. From thos esupplements used here I think Kent Tech-M which comes in a solution which oviously has some precipitate in it.

[iamwhatiam52]

I just want to kill my Bryopsis.

COST & CHEMISTRY DISCUSSIONS ASIDE, is it the concensus that people using Tech M have had the best results against bryopsis, followed by the epsom salts method?

Very interesting and informative thread, but I don't have the patience to go through all 445 posts.

[brtfreud]

Tech M works. Get the mag up to 1500-1600.

[TWallace]

Originally posted by iamwhatiam52
I just want to kill my Bryopsis.

COST & CHEMISTRY DISCUSSIONS ASIDE, is it the concensus that people using Tech M have had the best results against bryopsis, followed by the epsom salts method?

Very interesting and informative thread, but I don't have the patience to go through all 445 posts.

I think it's just that a lot more people have tried Tech M than epsom salt. I know that Tech M works from personal experience, but have not tried epsom salt. If I had it to do over again, I'd probably give epsom salt a try first since it's much cheaper and easier to find (locally). I've had to order Tech M from online vendors, and it's not cheap, especially if you have a large system.

[iamwhatiam52]

Just plunked down 33 bucks for a Salifert test kit and it only goes to 1500. No problem yet since I am starting at 1300, but what do I do later?

Do I cut the amount of water, powder and indicator liquid in half, then perform the final step as directed and double the result from the chart?