Instant Ocean Reef Crystals crashed my Tank!
 

After a regular water change using the Reef Crystals salt, all my fish died. I was lucky enough to notice and took most corals (LPS) out. Please be aware of this salt, so it does not happen to you. I went back to the store and changed the salt water, but it was too late for my fish.

How did it crash your tank? I find this highly unlikely the salt crashed your tank, care to explain more?

Ditto. I've been using Reef Crystals for years without an issue.

We're you using RODI or tap water? If tap, the city could have added higher levels of chlorine or chloramine if its been raining hard in Calgary and the waters are turbid.

I only use reefcrystal and have been for 8 years with no prob. did you mix up the salt but even that wouldn't affect the fish.

I am using RODI water and have been since I started my tank. I ran out of my salinity salt. I tried using reef crystals, and mixed my salt with RODI water, left mixing for two days. Reached salinity level 1.025 (same as my tank) and same temperature. Tank was doing really well prior to water change. And after...... the tank crashed. I got some salinity salt fron my brother in law and within a few hrs i saved what corals i could.

Any possibility that something may of fallen in the saltwater mix during those 2 days? You got kids? cleaning lady ? smelly aerosols automatically perfuming the room? that stuff can kill a tank

Even if it had been a bad batch, all the forums would be getting complaints by all the people who would have purchased the bad batch. I very much doubt that you would have been the only one getting a bad batch.
Salt mixes are often used as a scapegoat for things that go wrong, when it fact, at worst, it is only a coincidental occurrence.

It might have been that you switched salts.
The parameters for Reef Crystals may be different from the parameters of the salinity salt even if you have the salinity at 1.025.

I've read somewhere before that changing salt may not always be a good idea.

Well i did think about it, but im pretty sure i did the same steps. Took the same precautions and the only different step was the salt.

The water took two days to clear when mixing.

You could have did the same steps, but the salts parameters may be different from the salinity one.

I'm not that familiar with testing new salt water but things like pH, Alk, Mg, or other trace elements could have affected things.

I wonder if I can bring up that page that I read before about someone that always tests the new water for pH and alk and always makes sure they match it or else tanks could crash....

Either or, hopefully you didnt lose too much things :(
Its always sad when a tank crashs...

well no not really , testing new water is def good but ph in freshly mixed water regardless of what it reads is only temporary and controlled by available C02 the tank or bucket pulls in. alk on the other hand can be high or low

fwiw salt can be bad ive seen salts come back for all kinds of reasons , ones no better than the brand before but everyone should test their salts new mix....even though many of us dont. were talking about products that are mass produced.


this wouldn't be instant oceans first bad batch but like stated it wouldn't be a one person instance so with that said i also highly doubt the salt change its self made your tank crash , although i wouldnt hesitate to test for what you can ( salt parameters , equipment leaks etc)

sorry to hear about your luck and good luck with it if theres anything i or concept can do let us know:)

i stand corrected :)

its ok , theres a lot of confusing info that goes around about alk and ph on the net , the two are tied hand in hand with carbon dioxide :)


one should always test their new salt though or at least the first batch that gets made from a bucket:)

I guess its a hard lesson learned. Well right now i have started my tank again. Its cycling. All my coral its in another tank and doing really well. Thank you for your replies.

I call bull****. I think the correct term your looking for is newbie mistake. Thousands of people use this salt without issue

Thousands also use instant ocean, but i remember when it wiped out many tanks due to a bad mix and high alk. Because it was good last month doesn't mean it's good forever.
Although I do agree it wouldn't be one bucket, and we'd hear a lot more about it. Maybe we will in the next while :)

I have been using io reef crystals for years but I'm having issues as well. I buy my salt the only place in town which is petsmart. The last 2 160g pails and 50g bag that I have bought there have all read .25-.5 ammonia. Checked test kit on the fresh rodi water with 0 reading. Also checked test kit on tank which reads 0. I will no longer use io reef crystals. I have also had several fellow reefers in town check theirs and they all have the same readings.

yup IO had the big issue many years ago that caused quite a stink , so it can indeed happen regardless how many use it:)

Yea i guess so, but it still seems pretty unlikely. Technology is a lot better and more efficient than it was 5-10 years ago to. Lets hope we don't hear to many more reports of this.

amonia in salt is quite common as an impurity:)


from RHF:

There are a variety of sources of ammonia in reef aquaria. Minor sources include: 1) tap water (especially if it contains chloramine and is not treated with a deionizing resin) and 2) impurities in salt mixes and other additives. It has previously been shown that the total NH4-N ranged from 0.55 to 11.9 micromole/kg (0.008 to 0.17 ppm total NH4-N) in an analysis of eight brands of artificial seawater mixes. At the higher end of the scale, those levels will be detected with an ammonia test kit and can present potential toxicity concerns if fish are kept at those levels (see below). These levels of ammonia may be introduced from impurities in calcium chloride and magnesium chloride, where ammonia is a well known impurity resulting from some of the commercial manufacturing processes used (such as the Solvay process, which involves ammonia).

Calcium and magnesium additives can also be a significant source of ammonia, especially for aquarists who are trying to use inexpensive sources of bulk calcium or magnesium chloride. I discussed testing calcium chloride for ammonia in a previous article.

Just a thought here - do most people weight their salt when adding it into RODI? I do as I found the whole measured cup thing wildly inaccurate when I test the salinity of the newly prepared water (which I think is just good practice to do no matter what). You did say you tested the salinity so that should be fine - unless the testing was way off (no offense)?

A couple of more thoughts - how much water did you actually change - 20% or 80% - larger change can really impact things if the water is not close in parameters?

For the experts out there - is mixing for 2 days an issue at all? Perhaps not as it constantly gets mixed in the tank anyway but something in me remembers reading something about only letting salt mix until dissolved (not necessarily clear) and not for extended periods of time. Could the 2 day mixing time have any downside?

That said, I am still only 1.5 years into this whole crazy hobby so my questions/thoughts may be off base, but I wanted to throw that out there...

I usually mix my new salt water for a day or 2 sometimes more. Never seemed to be a problem.

I change 10% every week. I matched salinity and temperature. I have mixed sand upto 3 days with no effects. I use a power head to mix and at any point in time it would be the same as inside the tank. It should not affect the chemistry (and if it does, the same would happen inside the tank).

Theres more to new salt water then just temp and salinity.

I've thrown bags of Instant Ocean out before as well. It wasn't worth trying to prove the salt was bad to the retailer or manufacturer so I just buy a new bag and generally the new bag is fine. I haven't had fish die but the salt is inconsistent and at times it doesn't dissolve completely, the water is brownish or cloudy, and sometimes ****es off the corals especially sensitive SPS. If fish are dying though but no one else is having that problem, there might be something more to it like something in the bucket or something was tampered with.

Do you have a bare bottom tank.?

I've mixed salt for a month, no issues.

What about your POWER head that you are using. Maybe is it a older one or oil filled pump.

This is really strange that a 10% water change would cause a whole system to crash immediately. To me, it seems like there was a toxin introduced that caused this to happen. As others have pointed out, maybe something leaked into the mixing salt container. I would think there would be a lot more people using the salt that would start reporting this issue on this forum and on other reef forums. Maybe that is still to come though.

As for mixing salt and leaving it for extended periods, I mix mine about 10 days in advance and keep powerheads and heater on.

This is all very true. But if you have a well established tank, the nitrogen cycle will quickly digest and render a small amount of ammonia totally harmless when added to your tank. But if it is accompanied by other deaths (eg livestock) and lack of O2, then the ammonia can indeed be a problem, and can result in what we call a tank crash.

Don't know if your problems were directly related to the salt, but I wouldn't take a chance with it, if indeed that was the only actual change to your tank routine. Best of luck with your recovery.

Ummm, Reef Crystals has crashed tanks in the past. Go call the Vancouver Aquarium and ask them about 2012. Or y'all remember former TOTM member Fooser? Ever wonder why he's not really around anymore? Yup, Reef Crystals. I've had several clients that had tank wipe outs from RC's. Again, this was in 2012, but the precedence is there. Just because it didn't happen to you doesn't make it imputes to call BS on another person's experience.

Is this the one? No doubt I've had salt troubles too. But I'm surprised it would kill fish before killing the inverts. I've had Instant Ocean salt that mixed cloudy and never fully dissolved. After seeing my corals react poorly to it (and some sps die I think), I threw out the salt.

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=89006

Hey! There it is :D

WOW that may explain a few things that have happened to my tank. I was using Seachem Reef Salt and I was running low. I was at the reef shop one day picking up a few frags and asked about the salt, all he had was RC so I thought I would give it a try. Well I did a 20 gal change and everything seemed OK and did another in a weeks time. I then noticed one frag had a spot, skeleton showing, OH NO sure enough in 2 days 4 frags poof gone I ( they had be in the tank for awhile ) have also lost a Pipe Fish for no reason ( Pipe fish had be the tank for about 4 months ) was eating well getting along seemed to be happy. Went to sleep next day did not see him and have not since. I also noticed skimmer just was behaving the same and polyps not coming out. I noticed it the most on a Gorgonian that I had, was a beauty blue polyps. Then I did another water change may have been 2 weeks but I used the last bit of Seachem that I had and within minutes the polyps on the Gorgonian where like a giant rose bush bursting but within a few days they slowly became less and less. I thought OK must be trace elements so I picked up some Aquavitro Fuel, hope I spelled that right, but did not help much. Now all other measurements have be acceptable not perfect but within parameters but I have pretty much lost the Gorgonian and 2 to 3 more frags and I have not done a water change in a while just have not got to it, but things seem to have settled down as in no more loses, but I did decide that I was going to use another Salt and I picked up some Coral Life Salt and thought would give it a try but now that I have read this I think I may have to jump on this and see if anything changes. Wow this may explain quite a few things even that I have not listed just so it stays on the shorter side.
I will do a few water changes and post if notice anything worthy.

Mike

Did you have any fish that have the ability to release toxins? What size is your tank?

Also, in addition to a powerhead, salt should always be mixed with a airstone to proper disolve.

as far as your gorgonian goes it wasnt the salt you just simply never stood a chance at keeping it alive , it is NPS and the proper foods just arnt reasonable and sometimes not available , so it slowly starves

random changes in the aquarium can spark a feeding response but at the end of the day there very few people who can keep those types going longterm or even short term for some

the same can be said for pipefish they often starve or arnt suited for the tank they are in

frags could be anyones guess as theres alot of variables that take role;)

Well its interesting, I was just down looking at the tank and to give a small feeding, and you know on the lower part of the Gorgonian there is 2 polyps sticking out. I have not seen polyps on it for a long time and this was before I fed. I also noticed just more activity in general Hermits seem to be out and about and the Cleaner shrimp is out roaming not just sitting under rock ledge. Anyhow your right it may just be a fluke but that's what I have seen so far. I am going to do another water change and post if anything changes but definitely 2 polyps showed up on a coral I thought was toast.

All the best.

Mike

still though i wouldnt put any longterm hopes into that coral as mentioned it is NPS so unless your directly feeding it foods , and preferably live its only a matter of when.

when it comes to NPS gorgs just about anything can strike a feeding response including hands in the water , water changes , stirring sand, changing socks , feeding foods etc.

no salt on the market has what it needs in the way of nutrition;)