Using Instant Reef in FOWLR tank

[Tim Borsos]

Has anyone had any trouble with Instant Reef plug N Play in their FOWLR tank?

Background: I started a 200G FOWLR because I miss my large angels, butterflies and triggers. The tank has been running for about 1 year now. After researching option, I decided to add a pretty large piece of Instant Reef plug N play to supplement the live rock. Despite following instructions on rinsing/soaking prior to addition, I did encounter what I thought at the time were small issues. My skimmer went berserk for about a week (annoying, but not necessarily an issue I thought) and I had a rebound in brown algae in the sand bed concentrated the highest around the Instant Reef piece. The 4 fish in the tank did not seem to be adversely affected. In fact, they seem happy as can be. Fat, eating well, etc... However, the last 2 fish added (saddle back butterfly that went through my Q-tank for 4 weeks ) and a flagfin angel (which did not go through my Q-tank) died within about 5 days of going into the tank. My water chemistry is good and the 4 fish I have a not at all aggressive and the fish did not show any signs of being targeted with aggression. My working theory is that (maybe?) something leached out of the Instant Reef piece and over time the existing fish have built up a tolerance to whatever that might be while new fish have not? Seems a bit out there, but nothing else makes sense at the moment. I do change 10% of the water every week and I have placed some poly-filter in the sump to attempt to absorb something that I am unable to test for. Has anyone had any negative results like this with Instant Reef? Or any other synthetic reef material?

Water chemistry:
ammonia- 0
Nitrate-0
Nitrate <0.5ppm
Phosphate <.02 ppm
pH (8.1-8.3 with every check)
Temp 77

I would appreciate any thoughts or relatable experiences.

 

[jsker]

That is pretty interesting, I wonder if it has something todo with the paint that was used or the rock its self that is causing a chemical reaction.

 

[Tim Borsos]

Yeah could be. I am sending a water sample out for ICP this week along with a sample from my 100 gallon mixed reef. They use the same salt, water source, rock, etc... so I will be looking for any discernable differences that could explain this. I will share the results here if I see anything unusual.

 

[bushdoc]

This is a second post about Instant Reef Rock and problems in DT from that. You may want to look it up-it's somewhere on R2R forums.
I instructed Siri to remind me to never buy this brand.

 

[Tim Borsos]

This is a second post about Instant Reef Rock and problems in DT from that. You may want to look it up-it's somewhere on R2R forums.
I instructed Siri to remind me to never buy this brand.

Thanks for the tip. I did do a search for this topic prior to posting, but I didn't see the post you are referring to. I will keep looking. It doesn't help that there are tons of posts using key words "instant" and "reef" in various combinations They do sell this product on Amazon and there are some reviews there including someone claiming that it killed everything in their DT but that wasn't exactly the same as my experience. I do think that there are many people that do use it without issues, so perhaps there is just a small rate of failure, which of course would not be worth the gamble.

 

[bushdoc]

Thanks for the tip. I did do a search for this topic prior to posting, but I didn't see the post you are referring to. I will keep looking. It doesn't help that there are tons of posts using key words "instant" and "reef" in various combinations They do sell this product on Amazon and there are some reviews there including someone claiming that it killed everything in their DT but that wasn't exactly the same as my experience. I do think that there are many people that do use it without issues, so perhaps there is just a small rate of failure, which of course would not be worth the gamble.

The only thing I remember is that somebody used either paint or painted rock and everything went south.

 

[jeremyg]

Yeah could be. I am sending a water sample out for ICP this week along with a sample from my 100 gallon mixed reef. They use the same salt, water source, rock, etc... so I will be looking for any discernable differences that could explain this. I will share the results here if I see anything unusual.

Did you ever figure out the issue? I am thinking of adding Instant Reef to my fish-only tank...

 

[Tim Borsos]

Did you ever figure out the issue? I am thinking of adding Instant Reef to my fish-only tank...

I haven't yet. I don't believe that my issue is caused by the Instant Reef rock since my original fish are still healthy and thriving. I also can't rule it out either though. I have removed the Instant Reef from my tank as I continue to trouble shoot. I did do an ICP test comparing side by side this tank with my other reef tanks and there was nothing concerning or even different that would explain this problem. At this point, I am leaning towards something microbial as the source (although it is odd that none of the fish that have dies have shown any symptoms. If you do go with Instant Reef in your tank, I would highly recommend soaking it in a saltwater bath for as long as you are willing to wait. I followed the instructions provided and my skimmer went nuts for a week and I did start a new diatom issue that took me a while to resolve.