Kent Marine and Oceanic. The same salt now?

[sherm71tank]

revisited

I just did a large water change and the calcium is testing at 600 while alk and ph are both lower than usual. I've never had Kent test out like this before. Anyone know the facts?

 

[nick18tjetta]

From my understanding, Kent marine salt is Reef Crystals repackaged by Instant Ocean for Kent. Rayovac stopped offering discounts to small stores after they bought Marineland, so reefcrystals went sky high around here. Someone around here was told by a rep that Kent was just reefcrystals.

Nick

 

[sherm71tank]

Hmm... I hadn't heard that. Does Reef Crystals typically test high in calcium ( 600 ? ) and low on ph and alk?

 

[The_Nexis_One]

There was recently a serious problem with Kent salt in my area. There has been a whole host of problems associated with super high Ca and 'unsafe' low levels of Alk.

From my understanding - entire shippements of the salt are bring returned from our LFS here and they are requesting that people bring back any Kent Salt mix testing as you've described.

I've seen the tanks in the aftermath. The poor guys at the LFS have lost thousands and thousands of dollars in corals/life from mixing this salt.

You might mix a fresh batch, test your levels and contact Kent - I believe they will be doing a 'hush-hush' recall on affected salt mixes.

Best of luck,
John.

 

[sherm71tank]

Thank you very much! I am currently in process of mixing another batch from the same bucket because I thought I must have done something wrong with the previous batch. I will take measurements and get with Kent. My corals were shedding and acting very distressed after this water change. Thanks again for the heads up The_Nexis_One ! ! ! !

 

[atticusfinch]

kent now uses coralife as there base salt mix they used to use instant ocean and basically add there own "elements" to it .. now they just use coralife and add there own "elements" to it .

even though coralife is a fantastic salt

 

[sherm71tank]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6829310#post6829310 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by atticusfinch
kent now uses coralife as there base salt mix they used to use instant ocean and basically add there own "elements" to it .. now they just use coralife and add there own "elements" to it .

even though coralife is a fantastic salt

If this is the case I assure you that neither my corals or my test results think that Coralife is a fantastic salt ( not to mention my skimmers are still going crazy hours after the change). I emailed Kent about this and await their reply. If this is the new norm for Kent I will be switching.

 

[sherm71tank]

After a quick search for Kent Salt here on RC it seems I am not the first to notice the difference. Very very sad.

 

[atticusfinch]

wierd must be odd.. been using coralife for months over at the lfs here and we havent had any problems .. switched from kent over to coralife in my home tank about 7 months ago and have seen nothign but ongoing results


tanks stays at a constant

calc-480
alk-11
ph-8.3

hmmm

 

[sherm71tank]

I hope you are right atticusfinch. Premium Aquatics stopped using Kent because of this. I dunno. Time will tell.

 

[atticusfinch]

maybe a bad batch .. ever since oceanics bad batch people lost trust in them .. who knows

 

[The_Nexis_One]

Seems to be a bad batch. Our LFS has used them for years and tried to let them know where was a problem. Kent's employee tried to hide the fact and in doing so, lied to one/or more customers who had called directly -saying there was no problem and they hadn't heard anything about it.... when in fact, it was the same person who the LFS reported the problem and findings to. The LFS would have stuck with Kent if they would have handled the issue correctly. But lying to customers and trying to hide the mistake got them the boot.... all Kent products are being liquidated at 50% price and I'm pretty sure you'll not see Kent products back in the LFS again for the forseeable future.

Not sure how many hundreds of salt mix buckets/bags were affected - I've been waiting for Kent to release something on this, but.... nothing from what I've seen is showing that they are admitting any problems.

Hopefully they'll come to their senses and realize it's best to be honest and upfront... We'll see.

John.

 

[sherm71tank]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=6829433#post6829433 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by The_Nexis_One
all Kent products are being liquidated at 50% price
John.

It just occurred to me that one of my LFS also has this sale on Kent products. I also noticed that the "Central Pet" logo is on the side of the bucket and is now in bags. Wasn't like that before.

 

[sherm71tank]

I mixed another batch yesterday. the alk was very low and the calcium was high. I added some 1 part alk supplement to the mix and it seems ok now. Something has changed with the salt, I've been using Kent for years and this never happened before.