Tropic marin pro reef salt...German made buckets though...

[ReefRondo]

Hi guys,

First of all, I am based in Scotland UK so this is not an addition to the USA-Turkey situation.

I have been really struggling with 2 of my tanks for the last few weeks to a month and after a few ICP tests and other checks for pests, dipping etc I have been losing SPS slowly but no idea why. Today I decided to pay far more attention than I usually do to my salt water mixing station. It was running quite low so topped it up with RO and added my usual 5 or 6 scoops of salt to it for mixing. After a few minutes of mixing and the worst of the clouding disappeared I noticed quite a few pieces of random plastic floating on the top of the water and then lumps of white stuff at the bottom that was not mixing or dissolving. I will attach photos. I only managed to take a photo a little while later after an hour or so mixing when only one of these large lumps was still not dissolved. I managed to fish out the floating plastic pieces relatively easily. I have never found any foreign objects in my TMPR salt and certainly have never seen anything like these lumps before. They are whiter than the salt itself. Almost like a pure white lump of finer grain than salt. Having struggled with an issue in my tank I am of course now really concerned it is my salt. I then added a little salt to one section of my sump as my salinity has crept down to 1.024 today and there were loads of these lumps again. Picture attached. I have a third tank that I use the same salt on but a different bucket and it is doing fine. These two tanks, my office reefer and my frag tank both have AWC setup with a DOS from the same saltwater storage tank and both tanks I have lost a lot of SPS corals over the last few weeks.
Can anybody shine some light on this? Has anybody noticed this at all? These buckets were purchased late on 2021 as I buy them in bulk and put them into storage. I will attach a photo of the numbers on this bucket.
I have used this salt for over 2 years now and I have to say didn't have to clean my salt water mixing container once for over a year but now it is getting this staining in the bottom within a month which I also find strange.
Thanks in advance for any help guys.

This was floating in the tank along with a few others.

One of the large lumps still to dissolve after an hour of mixing.

Lumps from small amount of salt added to sump chamber.

Batch number on bucket lid.

Other bucket info in case it helps in identification.

 

[SPS2020]

You may want to get this moved to the Tropic Marin forum and tag @Lou Ekus for insight.

 

[ReefRondo]

You may want to get this moved to the Tropic Marin forum and tag @Lou Ekus for insight.

How would I go about doing that? I don’t want to go slamming the company at all but this is all a bit too much of a coincidence.

 

[SPS2020]

Maybe shoot him an email and see what he has to say.

 

[Sebastiancrab]

Hi guys,

First of all, I am based in Scotland UK so this is not an addition to the USA-Turkey situation.

I have been really struggling with 2 of my tanks for the last few weeks to a month and after a few ICP tests and other checks for pests, dipping etc I have been losing SPS slowly but no idea why. Today I decided to pay far more attention than I usually do to my salt water mixing station. It was running quite low so topped it up with RO and added my usual 5 or 6 scoops of salt to it for mixing. After a few minutes of mixing and the worst of the clouding disappeared I noticed quite a few pieces of random plastic floating on the top of the water and then lumps of white stuff at the bottom that was not mixing or dissolving. I will attach photos. I only managed to take a photo a little while later after an hour or so mixing when only one of these large lumps was still not dissolved. I managed to fish out the floating plastic pieces relatively easily. I have never found any foreign objects in my TMPR salt and certainly have never seen anything like these lumps before. They are whiter than the salt itself. Almost like a pure white lump of finer grain than salt. Having struggled with an issue in my tank I am of course now really concerned it is my salt. I then added a little salt to one section of my sump as my salinity has crept down to 1.024 today and there were loads of these lumps again. Picture attached. I have a third tank that I use the same salt on but a different bucket and it is doing fine. These two tanks, my office reefer and my frag tank both have AWC setup with a DOS from the same saltwater storage tank and both tanks I have lost a lot of SPS corals over the last few weeks.
Can anybody shine some light on this? Has anybody noticed this at all? These buckets were purchased late on 2021 as I buy them in bulk and put them into storage. I will attach a photo of the numbers on this bucket.
I have used this salt for over 2 years now and I have to say didn't have to clean my salt water mixing container once for over a year but now it is getting this staining in the bottom within a month which I also find strange.
Thanks in advance for any help guys.

This was floating in the tank along with a few others.

One of the large lumps still to dissolve after an hour of mixing.

Lumps from small amount of salt added to sump chamber.

Batch number on bucket lid.

Other bucket info in case it helps in identification.

A reefer friend's tank was on the verge of crashing last week due to a bad batch of Tropic salt. He had it ICP tested.

 

[ReefRondo]

With this being all UK based I don’t want to go bothering the guy if it’s nothing to do with him. As much as it is so upsetting to have lost all of my corals recently it’s not his fault. I would love some answers though as I am almost entirely convinced this salt is to blame. I of course could be wrong though.

 

[ReefRondo]

A reefer friend's tank was on the verge of crashing last week due to a bad batch of Tropic salt. He had it ICP tested.

What were the results if you don’t mind me asking?

 

[Sebastiancrab]

What were the results if you don’t mind me asking?

He texted me the ICP results below and now said it may not be the salt but unsure. All others not listed were zero:

Aluminum 10.0
Sodium 11126
Calcium 426
Magnesium 1451
Potassium 380
Bromide 63
Boron 4
Strontium 4
Sulpher 955
Lithium 205
Molybdenum 5
Zinc 25
Iodine 54
Iron 2
Barium 13
Silicon 230
Phosphorus 17
Phosphate .052

 

[vetteguy53081]

Are you sure its not the container than the salt. Substance looks like resin and either from polymers of tank or fragments from the bucket itself.
As for mixing, its approximately 1/2 cup per gallon or 150 grams per gallon or 5.29 ounces by weight per gallon to the full volume of RODI water at room temperature.

 

[ReefRondo]

Are you sure its not the container than the salt. Substance looks like resin and either from polymers of tank or fragments from the bucket itself.
As for mixing, its approximately 1/2 cup per gallon or 150 grams per gallon or 5.29 ounces by weight per gallon to the full volume of RODI water at room temperature.

It’s not the container. The bucket and bag are in perfect condition. It eventually dissolves over a long period of time.

 

[vetteguy53081]

It’s not the container. The bucket and bag are in perfect condition. It eventually dissolves over a long period of time.

Good, if it dissolves, sounds like the mix was exposed to moisture or got wet

 

[ReefRondo]

Good, if it dissolves, sounds like the mix was exposed to moisture or got wet

I did wonder that but the lumps are a more pure white than the salt and a smaller particle size too.

 

[Chrisv.]

Ah...another tm pro reef thread. Used to love this salt but even after they fixed things, I hear about issues like this pretty frequently. I don't know how much longer I can defend them. Does leave one with a great big eye roll.

 

[ReefRondo]

Ah...another tm pro reef thread. Used to love this salt but even after they fixed things, I hear about issues like this pretty frequently. I don't know how much longer I can defend them. Does leave one with a great big eye roll.

This is the same position i am in now too. I moved to their salt after the phenomenal test results BRS showed with their huge amount of testing. Basically sounded perfect for me although a little lower in alk than I prefer but I dose anyway. I just can’t have more corals die on me as it is not fair on the animals at all. I am and have been putting a tremendous amount of time and effort into my tanks and this is a little soul destroying.

 

[ReefRondo]

Triton Lab Showroom - Explore this water test results and click on the image above.

Someone wants to show you the water test results and shared this link to the evaluation. Click on the image above to explore the water test results.

www.triton-lab.de

 

[undermind]

Triton Lab Showroom - Explore this water test results and click on the image above.

Someone wants to show you the water test results and shared this link to the evaluation. Click on the image above to explore the water test results.

www.triton-lab.de

Holy silicon! Do you have a Brightwell brick in the sump by chance?

I've seen cases where the bio bricks have caused high silicon and of course aluminum.

You can also ask Triton to retest for you if that feels like an odd reading. That's what the second sample vial is for as I understand it.

 

[ReefRondo]

Holy silicon! Do you have a Brightwell brick in the sump by chance?

I've seen cases where the bio bricks have caused high silicon and of course aluminum.

You can also ask Triton to retest for you if that feels like an odd reading. That's what the second sample vial is for as I understand it.

Yup it’s off the chart high. I have 2 Brightwell bricks in my sump yes and 6 or so in the sump of my frag system too. I ran a test in my frag system a month or so ago with similar silicon results. Changed out my entire ro system just in case. I did read a comment on here from Randy saying not to be too worried about silicon levels unless I have diatoms or Cyanobacteria which I don’t.

 

[undermind]

Yup it’s off the chart high. I have 2 Brightwell bricks in my sump yes and 6 or so in the sump of my frag system too. I ran a test in my frag system a month or so ago with similar silicon results. Changed out my entire ro system just in case. I did read a comment on here from Randy saying not to be too worried about silicon levels unless I have diatoms or Cyanobacteria which I don’t.

Yes I've seen that same thread re: high silicon. I believe the reading in that ICP was 1247 or so, from my memory.

Maybe it causes no ill effects to corals at that level, but maybe it does. I think there can be a notion of things being "ok" because those that say they're ok don't run more sensitive corals like SPS. I think that's where a lot of the ambiguity came in with the original Tropic Marin salt debacle. A lot of people said the Turkish salt was harmless, however most all the people that had issues were seeing the issue with sensitive SPS. And those that didn't, had no SPS.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting anything about silicon levels here, or the TM salt, because I don't have extensive knowledge of the acceptable ranges. But if it were me, I sure as heck would be curious if eliminating that one extremely out of range level resolved my SPS issue. Rolling things out is nice.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

FWIW, high silicate (if that's what was causing high silicon) is unlikely to have any negative effects except to allow silicate-using organisms (diatoms, sponges, maybe snails, etc.) to get all they want and possibly grow faster than at lower silicate.

 

[Unitylover]

Im just seeing this feeling sad for them, and feeling relieved that I use IO