Hello Everyone,
First, thank you to everybody who reads this thread and follows this post. We really appreciate you and your interest. We realize that some of our methods change over time as we perfect reef keeping and strive to always make things better. Because of this, we feel this post is an important one to write and share with the community.
We have decided to switch salts! We were using tropic marine pro for many years and have had good results. Recently, we have seen a lot of posts on R@R pop up saying that salt made from Turkey had some defects and/or was not as quality as the old salts from Germany. For many months, we would just read the post but didn’t pay any attention. We just didn’t want to think the salt was not good. We had a few people send us Triton tests showing the iron was high. We didn’t think much of it at first because everybody says that the iron gets depleted very fast and that its not big deal.
To give you some background on the facility at SBB. We currently have 3 systems. a 550-gallon system, a 360-gallon system, and a 240-gallon system. With these systems, we watch the parameters like a hawk. For all 3 systems, we send in a Triton ICP test at least 3 times per month for each, and each week we monitor all the ICP tests that come in so we can see how the levels are doing on each one. Two of our systems have Acros and 1 of them doesn’t.
In terms of dosing and water changes, et. each week we do about an 18% water change in each of the 3 systems with tropic marine pro salt. We dose, Alk, Calc, and mag daily in 2 of the systems. The third system is only mushroom and goni, so we don’t dose Alk, calc, or mag. Daily we dose 40ML of No. 3 in the 550-Gallon, 20 mil of No. 3 in the 360-gallon, and we don’t dose No. 3 for the 240-gallon. Daily we also dose Iodine drops to the 3 systems. We also got Triton ICP tests for the Alk, calc, and mag, which don’t show high iron.
About 6 weeks ago, we noticed that in all 3 systems the iron started to appear. Six weeks ago, we noticed 1 show up on the Iron, then a few weeks later it showed at 2, and then 3 and 4, and then 5. All 3 systems showed this iron. We didn’t think anything of it at first, but then around 5 weeks ago, once the iron crossed the 2 range, we noticed that some of the Millis started to completely strip away and peel. Each week it got worse and worse. We figured it was the IRON. Once the Iron went to 5, some of the Tenuis randomly would peel. Not may Tenuis, but some. Millis seem to react the fastest. All torches, goni, and mushrooms seemed to be fine with the high iron and the Goni actually seemed to like it. Each week would we do water changes, hoping the Millis would recover. But they didn’t; they get worse.
Since we specialize in Tenuis and Acros , we got worried, wondering from where the Iron was coming. So, we decided to do ICP Triton tests on the Tropic Marine pro salt and our RODI water to rule that out. Once we got the test back, we saw the iron on the TMP salt was at 30 and the rodi water was 0.
Our best guess at this point on where the iron is coming from is the tropic marine pro salt. Since the ICP showed 30 and now it’s slowly creeping up in our tanks, we think it is coming from the salt. We have ruled out everything else with the use of other ICP tests. We think although the iron may get depleted quickly over time with water changes, it had residually built up over time. It was just under 7 weeks ago when we started seeing the buildup. What is weird is that we have been using the new tropic marine salt from Turkey for over 6 months. So, we don’t know if just the last 9 or so bags that were bad or if the IRON slowly creeped up.
From our experience, what we know is that if the corals have IRON over 2, then it can start causing issues. Imagine going to a coral show as a vendor and using new TMP salt with iron at 30. You’re using 100% TMP water. This high Iron can’t be good. With this thinking, we figured switching to another salt with 0 iron was the best solution.
Since we are now switching salts, the next is to which salt to switch. From talking to some industry experts and growers we look up to, we have narrowed it down to Red Sea Blue Bucket and Instant Ocean Reef Crystal. We have sent in Triton ICP test for this as well and have recently got them back. Instant Ocean has Iron at 49 while Red sea Blue Bucket has 0 Iron. Also, it appears the lithium in Instant Ocean is 396 and the lithium in Red Sea Blue Bucket is 201. So, we have decided to try the Red Sea Blue Bucket because of the low lithium and 0 Iron.
Currently, we have completed 3 water changes in all three systems with the Red Sea Salt. The Millis stopped pealing and the Tenuis have full PE. So far, things are looking really good… So far, we are happy with the change in salt. We have not sent in a ICP test yet, but figured since there is no iron in the Red Sea Salt that the iron now hopefully has gone back to 0. Another thing to note is now our ORP stays very high. With the TMP salt, it was always under 300 and now, after 3 water changes, the ORP stays very close to 400. This is something on which we are doing research to figure out why this may be, but it’s just something to note. We think Red Sea Blue bucket is much cleaner than the TMP was because we know it has this higher ORP.
We realize this is going to be an ongoing process and we will post some more results in the next few weeks and months as this all progresses.
We would love to hear your feedback and answer any of your questions. If you do ultimately switch salts, we would also love to hear your feedback. If you are like us and do 18% water changes with TMP and noticed your Milli peeling, then maybe you have high iron and should send in a Triton ICP test.
In this post, we have attached all the Triton tests we have done, showing everything we wrote about above.
Test included are ( which you can use as a guide if you need them)
- Tropic Marine pro salt
- RODI Water
- system 1 550 Gallons
- system 2 360 Gallons
- system 3 240 Gallons
- Red Sea Blue Bucket salt
- Instant Ocean Reef crystals
- Triton ICP for ESV ionic Alk
- Triton ICO for ESV ionic calc
