Tropic Marine BIO-ACTIF Salt?

[poormanisme]

After reading this thread, I can say that that i've had alot of the issues that have been posted on this tread. I used this salt for an entire bucket worth of water changes. My tank went to absolute ****. I had a ton of cyano, bleaching of acro's, stn, and ultimatlely rtn. It took some time before i put the two together. It only got worse the more water changes i did. I finally gave in and went back to IO. My tank is looking much better. Cyano went away. No more rtn. Coloring returned quickly to acros. I'm not a chemist so i have no idea what's in this salt that my tank does not like, but all returned to normal after switching away from this salt. Very strange since every produce that i have used from tropic marin has been fantastic. I love their biocalcium, biomagnesium, original salt and pro version. I have never had such a horrible response from switching salts. If i hadnt experienced it first hand i would not have thought it possible for this kind of a response from a salt mix. I have used just about every salt mix in the 10 years i've been keeping my reef and have never seen anything like this.

 

[M007]

Hello,

sometimes interrelationships are not so difficult to understand. In more than 20 years of professional care for reef aquaria, most times cyanobacteria have spread when phosphate concentrations in the water have been reduced. The result was that phosphate concentrations in the substrates are high and phosphate concentration in the water are low. This is in my eyes the constellation that cyanobacteria like. I think, since cyanobacteria are photosynthetic and they are bacteria they have espacially good abilities to mobilize nutrients like phosphate and iron from substrates and precipitates. This is why they are better able than any other sort of algae or bacteria to grow under theses circumstances.
When cyanobacteria grow after using BIO-ACTIF salt in my eyes this just means the phosphate concentration in the water has been reduced by the use of this salt.

Another thing is that I run reef tanks with extremy low phosphate concentrations for more than 15 years, maybe nearly 20 years. I was always convinced that the phosphate concentrations should be as low as possible, even limiting for the coral growth. Just as long I have always noticed that SPS are doing extremly bad at KHs higher than 8 or maximum 9°. They seem to tolerate higher KH at higher phosphate concentrations as I know of some other tanks but as soon as KH is high and phosphate is low tissue necrosis starts, most frequently from the base of the Acropora corals. It doesn´t matter whether you lower phosphates at cotinuously high KH or you rise KH at continously low phosphates, as soon as you try to achieve high KH and low phosphates you will see tissue necrosis or tissue decay. In my eyes this is the most frequent cause of RTN, especially at the base of Acropora spp..

Natural seawater has a KH of just 6.5° KH at 35 PSU salinity ("normalized alkalinity"). It does not help for anything to run a KH higher than 8, especially not for coral growth. SPS will allways show signs of stress and reduced growth at low phosphates and high KH.

Only some SPS and many LPS show rapid growth at high KH and high phosphates but both is unnatural and I think (although I am not 100% sure) the skeletons produced in this way are unnaturally thin and fragile. I did never try to achieve these unnatural conditions to have more rapid growth.

Even easier is the case of the ORP. ORP electrodes have to be cleaned and cared for extraordinarily frequently and carefully. Otherwise the ORP electrode instead of showing the ORP of the water just shows the bacterial acitivity on its surface. Since it is exactly the intention of the BIO-ACTIF sea salt to add organic substances to stimulate bacterial activity I don´t wonder that the electrode shows a reduction of the ORP.
Even in the case the ORP electrode had been cleaned very carefully before measuring I wouldn´t wonder that it shows a reduced ORP since organic substances are reduced substances. If it wouldn´t show up a reduced ORP I would wonder whether the salt contains organic substances as it claims at all.

Hans-Werner

Wunderbar! From my personal observations of my system this makes perfect sense to me. As I dropped my P04 a number of my SPS went into distress. Only after maintaining my dKH @ 7.5 did they recover and return to + growth and polyp extension. Interesting bit about ORP. The comments on ORP reduction, after WC, has been something I have grown used to. Happens everytime but usually recovers in 2-3 days. I've been using TMP since 2007, tried a number of other salts including DD and RNS, always returned to TMP. Look forward to blending in some of the Bio-Actif as some point in the future.

 

[vivek]

I have also been giving this salt a try and my results are very mixed after almost a month. I have experienced an outbreak of cyanobacteria, rendering my beautifully white, shallow sand bed a complete mess. I think I have noticed an increase in polyp extension and some improvement in color, but I'm not sure whether that is true or if I'm experiencing a bit of a "˜placebo" effect given that I'm looking at the tank more and trying to see the desired results.

In general, for many of our systems it seems that this salt is excessively counterproductive. So to summarize so far, there have been a variety of recommendations in this thread; lower your alkalinity, replace or cover your sand bed, purchase fish or other CUC animals to eat the unwanted by products, remove trace elements containing iron, increase flow, grow more coralline algae, etc. All of this coupled by increased maintenance and manual cleaning, etc, not to mention the premium cost "“ it just doesn't make sense to me.

I have kept a notably clean tank for a very long time albeit with relatively pale coral colors, but now I am completely embarrassed to show my tank"¦"¦ but, with all that being said, I'm going to try and give it some more time and try and make it work - stir the sand bed a bit, and try to counteract the cyano with MB7. Overall, at this point I'm not impressed and already bought a new bucket of my old brand should things not start to turn for the better after the next couple of water changes. I suppose like many others I was expecting this salt to be more of a one-stop-shop type of solution. Perhaps consolidating some of the various products we might use or dose, while improving the health of our reef nonetheless. Like others, I've found the exact opposite to be true.

I cannot agree more. This is not a salt for every tank. The cost and risk of Cyanobacteria and questionable benefits for the corals makes me think this salt is not going to be very successful. In fact I doubt it will survive long enough since people who believe in carbon dosing can do it in a more controlled fashion with biopellets or vodka at a lot cheaper. I strongly believe that carbon dosing will exist like ozone and some other husbandry things that some people will continue to experiment with mixed results.

 

[dzhuo]

Hello,

sometimes interrelationships are not so difficult to understand. In more than 20 years of professional care for reef aquaria, most times cyanobacteria have spread when phosphate concentrations in the water have been reduced. The result was that phosphate concentrations in the substrates are high and phosphate concentration in the water are low. This is in my eyes the constellation that cyanobacteria like. I think, since cyanobacteria are photosynthetic and they are bacteria they have espacially good abilities to mobilize nutrients like phosphate and iron from substrates and precipitates. This is why they are better able than any other sort of algae or bacteria to grow under theses circumstances.
When cyanobacteria grow after using BIO-ACTIF salt in my eyes this just means the phosphate concentration in the water has been reduced by the use of this salt.

Hi Hans-Werner,
Can you explain this a little more in detail? I am confuse how high phosphate concentration in sand combined with low phosphate concentration in water grows cyano better than high phosphate concentration in both sand and water.

 

[customdusty]

The reality of the situation here is that some people have had good results, and some have had bad or worse results. If you are a gambler give it a try - but be warned. Maybe it'll turn out great, but who knows. For me, I'm not a "who knows" type of person when it comes down to the tens of thousands I have invested in this hobby.

To me this whole things seems like the consumers are being used for testing. There is no way that this salt was successfully tested on an appropriate sample size of reefs before being brought to the market. Just like the latest weight loss drug, there should be a disclaimer that says "results not typical".

 

[burnah]

ive just finished a bucket of this salt, along with dosing vodka i have not made any bad cyano experiences, although there are small areas with low flow on the substrate where i have some kinda red slime but they are minimal and started after adding vodka. have to say though, i started dosing vodka as the result from the salt caused bacterial growth did not reduce my nutrients enough to facilitate sps growth as i wanted it. but this is in my opinion specific for my system due to heavy feeding and slack maintenance . i will not continue with using this salt, but with the vodka.

i have to say though that i find it great that someone of the company actually participates in this discussion, that makes me think positive about that company!

 

[FALCON-SA]

Hi Hans-Werner,
Can you explain this a little more in detail? I am confuse how high phosphate concentration in sand combined with low phosphate concentration in water grows cyano better than high phosphate concentration in both sand and water.

Thanks hans!I find this to be one of the best possible reasons as to why cyano all of a sudden took a hold of my 6 year old reef after i done a big water change.

I ran phosphate removers aggressively etc but it just got worse until three or four months later i relented to a commercial product and I'm glad to say it worked well in two of my reefs with no adverse effects,i followed the instructions carefully.I'm talking about BOYD'S CHEMI CLEAN.Apparently it oxidises the nutrients from even deep within the rock,I still dont know how exactly it does this but it has worked and ever since last year when I used it i have done another water change while holding thumbs but no cyano has returned,also nutrient levels really did drop significantly and i noticed some of my sps coloured up with its use.

I wouldnt recommend it for frequent use though as its quite process that has to be adhered to properly according to the product.

oh and just to explain to dzhuo what you meant from what i understand it means:If you have high phosphate in water then other algae etc seem to thrive more and use up available phosphates,but when its in the rock then cyano can outcompete other organisms(like even corals) as it can draw the phosphate from the rock directly by growing on it,so cyano doesnt need the nutrients to be water borne!that what makes it so hard to get rid of as your water can have no phosphates as the cyano uses it before it can go into the water for your water changes/or other phosphate removal methods to even get at it.

 

[FALCON-SA]

i guess the only other way is to remove the rock and literally force the phosphates to leach out quickly by placing it in a dark container with salt water and phos removal media or else in ro water(which is a bit extreme but could pull it all out in a shorter time since nutrients tend to move towards the solution with a lower concentration(also the rate is proportional to the concentration difference or sg basically.)

 

[dzhuo]

Thx for the explanation Falcon but this still doesn't make any sense to me at all:

1. One of the reason we do water change is to lower excess nutrient in a closed system so I don't understand how ending up with an overall cleaner system will suddenly give you a cyano bloom. Let's assume before we do water change and we have 1ppm (just make up the number for discussion purpose) of phosphate in the sand and 1ppm of phosphate in the water column. The tank has been in this state for 2 weeks without cyano. A water change is performed with this salt and now we have 0.9ppm of phosphate in the water column. The sand remains to have 1ppm of phosphate but slowly leach phosphate back to the water column. 2 days later, the sand has 0.9ppm of phosphate and the water column is back to having 1ppm due to the leach. We now end up in a state of 0.9ppm in sand and 1ppm in water column. Compare to where we were before with 1ppm in both sand and water column. How can an overall cleaner system makes cyano thrives better? The net effect of a water change is you have taken out more phosphate so how can this cause any cyano bloom?

2. Even if we assume this theory is correct. This can't be the only salt that lower excess nutrient after a water change right? There are lots of different quality salts and I would assume all of them would lower phosphate after a water change. It has to be or we would just keep adding back phosphate. How come for those of us that never use this salt do not experience cyano bloom?

Let me know if I misunderstand you.

 

[customdusty]

i guess the only other way is to remove the rock and literally force the phosphates to leach out quickly by placing it in a dark container with salt water and phos removal media or else in ro water(which is a bit extreme but could pull it all out in a shorter time since nutrients tend to move towards the solution with a lower concentration(also the rate is proportional to the concentration difference or sg basically.)

Or you could just use your old salt brand, wouldn't that be easier?

 

[FALCON-SA]

Thx for the explanation Falcon but this still doesn't make any sense to me at all:

1. One of the reason we do water change is to lower excess nutrient in a closed system so I don't understand how ending up with an overall cleaner system will suddenly give you a cyano bloom. Let's assume before we do water change and we have 1ppm (just make up the number for discussion purpose) of phosphate in the sand and 1ppm of phosphate in the water column. The tank has been in this state for 2 weeks without cyano. A water change is performed with this salt and now we have 0.9ppm of phosphate in the water column. The sand remains to have 1ppm of phosphate but slowly leach phosphate back to the water column. 2 days later, the sand has 0.9ppm of phosphate and the water column is back to having 1ppm due to the leach. We now end up in a state of 0.9ppm in sand and 1ppm in water column. Compare to where we were before with 1ppm in both sand and water column. How can an overall cleaner system makes cyano thrives better? The net effect of a water change is you have taken out more phosphate so how can this cause any cyano bloom?

2. Even if we assume this theory is correct. This can't be the only salt that lower excess nutrient after a water change right? There are lots of different quality salts and I would assume all of them would lower phosphate after a water change. It has to be or we would just keep adding back phosphate. How come for those of us that never use this salt do not experience cyano bloom?

Let me know if I misunderstand you.

Well let me answer your second part first:In my opinion its possibly got nothing to do with the salt at all really as I used Red sea pro when that happened to me and others have reported these kind of events with d-d salt and others so its either one of two things(the salts in question have much lower levels of phosphate relative to other brands OR its just a matter or timing and at the point in time that you do the water change it happens that you have elevated levels of phosphate hiding in the rocks and hence the scenario hans put forward-i seem to favour the latter view point)

As for the first point the theory seems to point to the fact that firstly if you have 1ppm of phosphate in the rock and 1ppm in the water now after a water change the bacteria can consume alot more phosphate in the water due to the available carbon and hence the levels quickly drops to close to zero...now algae and water bourne bacteria etc find it hard to compete with the cyano since the cyano can get get to the po4 direct from the source(rock/substrate BEFORE it leaches back into the water stream,this is just a theory and not proven by any facts yet so its open to lots of debate still:mixed:

The main thing that still baffles me is what exactly gives the cyano the slight INITIAL EDGE over other bacteria that can grow on the rocks?

 

[dzhuo]

Thx for the explanation again Felcon but unfortunately I just don't think this makes sense unless:

1. There is prove that this particular salt has significantly lower phosphate than the rest of any major salt out there. For example, IO, RC, SeaChem, regular TM, etc. Your theory seems to suggest all these salts have significantly higher phosphate than BIO-ACTIF which is why we never experience cyano bloom. I would love to see a more scientific approach with data backing this up.

2. Regarding:

now after a water change the bacteria can consume alot more phosphate in the water due to the available carbon

Do we know BIO-ACTIF contains higher carbon source? If so, how much more?

 

[FALCON-SA]

Thx for the explanation again Felcon but unfortunately I just don't think this makes sense unless:

1. There is prove that this particular salt has significantly lower phosphate than the rest of any major salt out there. For example, IO, RC, SeaChem, regular TM, etc. Your theory seems to suggest all these salts have significantly higher phosphate than BIO-ACTIF which is why we never experience cyano bloom. I would love to see a more scientific approach with data backing this up.(not necessarily lower phosphate levels but more importantly possibly higher phosphate processing capability with this brand,with others such as d-d and red sea there might actually be just lower levels of phosphate only.Yes a scientific approach would have to be used to proof this hypothesis we have now put forward hence its not yet a fact.)

2. Regarding:



Do we know BIO-ACTIF contains higher carbon source? If so, how much more?

again i have never even used bio-actif but the naming and company claims it to be bio active and aids in nutrient control-how they do it I dont know,maybe bio means bacteria or bio means carbon release from the product or maybe both.again thats assuming that we believe them do you have any reason to doubt their claims?

please see my answers above in red.

 

[dzhuo]

not necessarily lower phosphate levels but more importantly possibly higher phosphate processing capability with this brand

Or there are excess mineral / nutrient / additive that cause the cyano bloom.

Anyway, I don't use this salt either but it grabs my attention from his statement that a water change that leads to cyano bloom is a "good thing". I haven't heard this before so I just want to clarify with him.

 

[FALCON-SA]

well the thing is after i had the cyano bloom I started reducing nutrients pretty agressively and it did not remove it even though the water was polished.so it means that cyano was not thriving in my relatively high nutrient water but the water change that reduced the nutrients in the water caused a bloom...so i would also say water changes with a salt that causes a cyano bloom(even though its not what we want) could be a sign of the water(new salt mix) being very nutrient poor.

 

[dzhuo]

Well, good luck with the salt then.

If you end up continue using it, let us know how things go.

 

[FALCON-SA]

Well, good luck with the salt then.

If you end up continue using it, let us know how things go.

lol after that i'm sticking to no water changes for almost a year now will see how long i can keep my parameters in check without a water change:lmao: i dont want cyano again for nothing.

 

[SaraB]

Just stumbled upon this thread. I gave this salt the ole college try for about 7 months and had nothing but issues starting with cyano, moving to hair algae and then back to cyano ... then the coral death started near the end of the usage. When the algae started, I was running circles trying to figure out what was going wrong ... I increased my frequencey of changing my carbon and gfo and then did what any good reefer would do, increased my water changes since dilution is the solution to the pollution, right? Must have ran about 1,200 gallons of this salt through my system before I figured out it was the salt. Went back to basic Tropic Marin and I'm back to normal!

What triggered me to figure out it was the salt is that I pulled all the healthy coral out of my system thinking I had a bacterial infection hitting all my corals and placed then in a 12G frag swap set-up I have. I was doing 3-4 gallon water changes on it daily and started growing algae on the frag plugs, eggcrate and sides of the acrylic tank. Kind of hard to do that when I was not feeding the tank and doing 25% water changes a day and was running carbon and gfo ... kind of makes me wonder wants really in this salt!

 

[All Delight]

I always used TMP salt then tried a bucket of the Bio Active. What happened to my DT is my LPS started to slowly bleach. Since I've switched back to the TMP salt. Its been only a couple of weeks, but hopefully I can go back to how things were before.

 

[All Delight]

No issues with cyano.