Bad batch of Instant Ocean? Alkalinity through the ROOF!!!

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Megalodon:

I made up 2 batches of your water. One was in a glass jar, exactly as I did for Thomas. It mixed up clear and is still clear about 30 minutes later. I'll keep watching it. If you recall, my pH probe broke in thye last round, so I didn't test pH. The alkalinity was about 16 meq/L (45 dKH). Not as high as Thomas', but still way too high.

In order to be sure that I wasn't testing some artifact of settling from the mailing, I dissolved up more than 3/4 of the remaining salt, making about 1.5 gallons in 2 plastic pitchers. It too is still mostly clear, though a little bit cloudy. It got a lot more mixing. The alkalinity came out at 16.8 meq/l (47 dKH). So the high alkalinity is representative of the enire batch of material that you sent to me.

I'll keep monitoring both for a while to see if they have a precipitation event like the material from Thomas.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Megalodon:

Both samples had become very cloudy within 2 hours. I expect that the problem is the same that Thomas saw: precipitation of calcium and magnesium carbonate.

Definately do not use this in your tank, and because you did D) check the tank levels for magnesium, in addition to the usual concerns about calcium and alkalinity.

 

[johnstringer]

I too have recently received a 200gal. bucket of IO. I did a 25% water change, and did not notice any cloudiness, or prec.
But, I did notice for about 8 hours after the WC, my Euroreef skimmer was entirely full of bubbles, entirely full, when normally the bottom fifth of the column is clear of bubbles. I thought this was odd, and after a day or so, it returned to normal. Could this be a result of a high alk content of the the WC ? I do not have an Alk. test kit, yet.

 

[Megalodon]

Randy, thank-you very much

Randy, thank-you very much

Wow, so Thomas' dKH was 95! :eek2: And mine was 37! :eek2: Some people say their dKH comes out at 3 while others 24. :eek2:

Randy there were a few other people sending salt to you as well; at least I know Spham was. Spham did you or anyone else follow through with mailing to Randy?

So I guess I have to go out now and buy a Magnesium test kit. That's getting expensive but in light of this I'd have to say it's worth it. But perhaps I won't allow AS to profit anymore than they have from me by getting their test kits... maybe I'll go with Sailfert.

Mr. Kent, I hope your salt in unaffected. It mustn't be because no one else has come forward recently with complaints that I know of. Good job.

 

[spham]

Re: Randy, thank-you very much

Re: Randy, thank-you very much

Wow, so Thomas' dKH was 95! :eek2: And mine was 37! :eek2: Some people say their dKH comes out at 3 while others 24. :eek2:

Randy there were a few other people sending salt to you as well; at least I know Spham was. Spham did you or anyone else follow through with mailing to Randy?

So I guess I have to go out now and buy a Magnesium test kit. That's getting expensive but in light of this I'd have to say it's worth it. But perhaps I won't allow AS to profit anymore than they have from me by getting their test kits... maybe I'll go with Sailfert.

Mr. Kent, I hope your salt in unaffected. It mustn't be because no one else has come forward recently with complaints that I know of. Good job.

No, I didn't send a sample to Randy. He has too much to do anyways. Randy, if you still want a sample of my salt, send me a PM.

 

[Megalodon]

Bob phoned

Bob phoned

OK, don't send to Randy anymore. He does already has too much to do.

Bob Studt from Aquarium Systems just phoned me using the cell number I provided earlier in this thread. I actually had not made any real effort to get in contact with him until Randy reported on my salt sample... I was naive in thinking that would be good enough.

They want a sample. They say if it turns out to be defective they are empathetic I had to go through what I did. He gave me the impression they'd make good on my damages. I'll mail them a sample today if I can get to the post office in time.

I guess they either don't take Randy's word for it about my salt, or they want to test it more than they want to let on they do. Thomas said they told him they only tested his salt for alkalinity. I thought at the time they should do more testing than just that, but maybe they say they don't because they don't want to tell the public everything that was wrong. I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t know.

Bob said when they tested Thomas' salt, ââ"šÂ¬Ã…"œit didn't look too good and it didn't make them very happy.ââ"šÂ¬Ã‚ He said that it's certainly conceivable it's a bad batch but there's not 100s of bad buckets out there. I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t know how many buckets are in a batch, I forgot to ask. I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t know how many bads are in the batches and I donââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t think they do either.

So anyone with bad salt, don't let it go... send salt to Bob at:

Aquarium Systems: Att. Bob Studt
8141 Tyler Bvld.
Mentor, Ohio
44060

Or phone him at 1-800-822-1100 Extension 22

 

[reefmadness]

My salt sample went out in the mail today.

 

[Megalodon]

More people from our area reefmadness have come forward.

Here are some links to Canada's reef forum Canreef.com where people discuss this:

http://www.canreef.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6272

http://www.canreef.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6183&start=30

In BC alone, I think there's five so far who's decided to come forward.

 

[martym]

I also have a bad pail of salt from IO. After 24 hrs of mixing the ALK reading was 7.2meq\l. I'm going to send a sample to them and see what they say.

 

[Megalodon]

Poor Marty

Poor Marty

Just after my tank crashed two weeks ago I bought a used UV sterilizer off him. He's a very nice guy. His tank was a lot more advanced than mine... but I don't think Marty added the cloudy water because he already knew what happened to me. At least I hope he didn't add it... he had a lot more inverts than I did.. Ouch! :eek2:

He got the salt at the same store too, just after I did. I think I assured him the chances of getting another bad bucket of IO salt was so slim he shouldn't worry about it... oops.

He posted here on my request. I'll stop speaking on his behalf now.

This is the best saltwater forum on the net... welcome MartyM. Somebody do that animated "Welcome" thing.

:fish2: :fish1: :fish2: :fish2: :fish1: :fish2: :fish2: :fish1: :fish2:

 

[mjag]

Hey

Hey

My went out fed x today. I have a question since I used The bad salt to start my tank which is 9 weeks old now. How much of a water change do I need to perform(specs below). To get it back to normal?

Also Do we know what caused the high ALK readings and can I test for it to make sure its within normal range. Last thing who if any will be switching salt brands because of this?

 

[Megalodon]

Mjag, I'll tell you what I did: A 90% water change.

Sounds drastic to some but it saved my fish and feather duster. The bad salt is completely unacceptable in the tank... even though I did a 90% water change with water of a dKH of 4 my tank water still came out at a dKH of 14 right after the change.

If you don't have any livestock in your tank at the moment, may I suggest as big of a water change as possible, while matching salinity, temperature, and pH of the new water to the old water, for the sake of the micro-organisms. It will depend on your situation but that's probably the way to go.

 

[mjag]

Hey

Hey

Well I did a 30 gal change last week. I was going to do another this week. You think I need to do another 30 or 60 or 90.


If I need to do 90% It would have to be Tap water. Cause my Ro unit does about 50 a day at the most.

Mjag

 

[Megalodon]

Mjag, is everything already dead in your tank? If so, do as big of a change as you can. If there's things still alive, but seem to have adjusted to the high alkalinity by now, do smaller more frequent water changes until almost all of the bad salt is out of your tank.

 

[mjag]

Hey

Hey

So far 2 corals are ok I lost 4 and 2 others look bad. I have one Tux Urchin in there doing good. I just put a few crabs in there tonight to see if its any better, Besides that The tank looks dead to me. If I need to do a 90% I can but as I said it would be tap which I know is not the best route to go. But I have very little space to hold water and very low output of Ro.

Mjag

 

[Megalodon]

Well if there's been things living in there with the bad salt for a while now maybe you should ease them back to the normal water slower than I suggested... a 90% water change is crazy if you have corals... Are they still dieing? I see an urchin is doing OK now. Do lots of smaller changes, that way you can have RO water instead of tap water like I did.

 

[mjag]

Yes there are dieing

mjag

 

[Megalodon]

IMO, if they're dieing, what do you have to loose? I don't know about the urchin that's OK now, but if everything else is on their death bed for the very water they sit in, I can tell you a massive water change can only be good at this point. I hate to ask what happened with your 120lbs of LR and DSB?

I noticed there were many little tiny critters and types of algae that survived the bleaching of my LR... so you might be OK in that regard.

 

[reefmadness]

I had my choice of replacement salts today and went with I/O. I think there's a good reason they have 80 % of the market (I read this). I don't care what your makeing, if it's in volume anything can and will go wrong, and apparently it did. I'm just amazed that a company like this, produces these bucket's with no production date or reference of any kind so that they are able to trace back problems. No matter how many people come foreward, I/O will never know exactly what went wrong in their production line because it will be impossible to trace back. My f/s alone buy's 500 bucket's at a time, and so far only two or three of us have been affected. If nothing else, I'm guessing damage control at I/O will be looking into this production problem. In the mean time I say, use the product, just test each bucket before you use it. God knows were all used to testing, ......................for the piece of mind once more won't kill us.

 

[Megalodon]

Reef, that's true...

Reef, that's true...

If we're talking about the same batch at the same store, then heed caution. I thought at first the chances of this happening again were too slim to bother avoiding the same brand and batch, but we know now that people who buy salt from this batch are more likely to complain.

I replaced my bad salt with the same brand and batch and it's great so far. The second time around I just had a higher chance of being screwed again, but I was lucky.

Keep getting IO, but how do we insure it's not the same batch? I guess buying only the newer style of bucket will ensure this. Besides that, you're right, even AS can't determine the extent of this bad batch because they don't mark buckets with batch numbers.

:fish2: :fish1: :fish2: :fish2: :fish1: :fish2: