EZreefin
NJRC Member
I bought a 160 gallon bucket of Reef Crystals from Chewy in July. The lot number is 23346.
I always roll the bucket, shake it, turn it upsidedown etc. to make sure there is no settling during shipping, open it up and check for clumping and discoloration etc. mix it in a 55 gallon bin of RODI water at 77 degrees for more then 24 hrs before I test salinity. And never turn the pump off. Now with that out of the way I did a 40 gallon water change to my 125 gallon reef tank.
After the water change my green Bali slimer went crazy. Way more then normal... It usually slimes a little, but not like this. It was a lot .I just thought it was annoyed and thought nothing of it. My PH and ALK were good. I just let it go. The next day my turbo snail was upside down, my serpent starfish looked lifeless and barely moved when I touched it. I thought it was odd and my gorgonian still never opened from the day before.
Next day my Jedi mindtrick was very light in color, snail still didn't move and same with starfish. I called a fellow reefing buddy and tried to troubleshoot ... He mentioned that some signs point Magnesium. I know too high can kill snails... And though maybe.... I'll test it. Well the test came in at 780ppm....yes 780ppm I thought it was an error .... I tested it again... I call my buddy and he didn't think it was possible also .. he brought his kit over to double check .. (red sea kit) sure enough it was !
I tested a fresh batch in the bin with the red sea mag. Kit and it turned blue with only using .10 of the agent... It was so low that it didn't even read on the chart. my buddy had a 5 gallon salt mix from the last batch that I used for my tank and tested it with his other Salifert kit. It came in at 270!
I reached out to Instant Ocean and they sent me a bunch of questions and asked for pictures,proof of purchase, how was the salt made and how long before it was used. They said they will ship me another bucket of salt and will send the complaint up to Quality control to do some research on the specific batch / lot of salt.
So now lesson learned. I tested for years on there salt and never had a problem. I just expected the quality to be there and just tested usually for ALK. Now I will go back to testing MAG. and Calcium also. Over the past couple of days I used about a gallon of Mag from BRS and I sit now at 1080ppm Mag. And over the next few days I'll cont. to bring it up a little more each day. Also my calcium suffered due to the low Mag. And it was at 380 but now is back up to 420 slowly moving it up also.
I lost my big turbo snail, starfish, 3/4 of my Jedi mindtrick, but it stopped bleaching and is getting color again on the part that is left. My Walt Disney had a portion that just peeled off the skeleton so I had to cut it off quickly from the main colony. It seemed to work hopefully . the piece bleached but my main colony is still looking good 2 days later. And My TSA Bollywood died today.. so hopefully that is last thing to go. Fingers crossed .
Sorry this is so long, I just wanted to let people know what happened and to be aware of a possible bad batch of salt out there. I don't want other reefers to go through what I'm going through now.
Safe reefing everyone!
I always roll the bucket, shake it, turn it upsidedown etc. to make sure there is no settling during shipping, open it up and check for clumping and discoloration etc. mix it in a 55 gallon bin of RODI water at 77 degrees for more then 24 hrs before I test salinity. And never turn the pump off. Now with that out of the way I did a 40 gallon water change to my 125 gallon reef tank.
After the water change my green Bali slimer went crazy. Way more then normal... It usually slimes a little, but not like this. It was a lot .I just thought it was annoyed and thought nothing of it. My PH and ALK were good. I just let it go. The next day my turbo snail was upside down, my serpent starfish looked lifeless and barely moved when I touched it. I thought it was odd and my gorgonian still never opened from the day before.
Next day my Jedi mindtrick was very light in color, snail still didn't move and same with starfish. I called a fellow reefing buddy and tried to troubleshoot ... He mentioned that some signs point Magnesium. I know too high can kill snails... And though maybe.... I'll test it. Well the test came in at 780ppm....yes 780ppm I thought it was an error .... I tested it again... I call my buddy and he didn't think it was possible also .. he brought his kit over to double check .. (red sea kit) sure enough it was !
I tested a fresh batch in the bin with the red sea mag. Kit and it turned blue with only using .10 of the agent... It was so low that it didn't even read on the chart. my buddy had a 5 gallon salt mix from the last batch that I used for my tank and tested it with his other Salifert kit. It came in at 270!
I reached out to Instant Ocean and they sent me a bunch of questions and asked for pictures,proof of purchase, how was the salt made and how long before it was used. They said they will ship me another bucket of salt and will send the complaint up to Quality control to do some research on the specific batch / lot of salt.
So now lesson learned. I tested for years on there salt and never had a problem. I just expected the quality to be there and just tested usually for ALK. Now I will go back to testing MAG. and Calcium also. Over the past couple of days I used about a gallon of Mag from BRS and I sit now at 1080ppm Mag. And over the next few days I'll cont. to bring it up a little more each day. Also my calcium suffered due to the low Mag. And it was at 380 but now is back up to 420 slowly moving it up also.
I lost my big turbo snail, starfish, 3/4 of my Jedi mindtrick, but it stopped bleaching and is getting color again on the part that is left. My Walt Disney had a portion that just peeled off the skeleton so I had to cut it off quickly from the main colony. It seemed to work hopefully . the piece bleached but my main colony is still looking good 2 days later. And My TSA Bollywood died today.. so hopefully that is last thing to go. Fingers crossed .
Sorry this is so long, I just wanted to let people know what happened and to be aware of a possible bad batch of salt out there. I don't want other reefers to go through what I'm going through now.
Safe reefing everyone!
