purple up users beware

[theedprado]

Five customers have brought to my attention this week the dangers of dosing calcium products such as purple up. They have all had some problem with their system since begining to use this additive. Some range from coraline die off to total crashes. Additives that contain calcium, most likley calcium chloride, will increse the amount of calcium in your system. But, they will also lower the amount of carbonate buffer in your system. This affects the dkh as well as the ph of your tank. If you want coraline in your tank be patient. By adding unnecessary chemicals to your tank you may create more problems than you solve. Instant Ocean has been around for forty years, if you really needed that much calcium they woud have added it by now. Although the temptation to fall victim to the quick fix may be great nothing is as effective for your system as patience. These additives are an easy quick profit for pet stores who do not take the time to explain the proper reef chemistry necessary for a thriving system. If you are considering using any additive, test your water first to see if you really need it. Once starting, test your water frequently to determine the rate at which your system uses the additive. Remember that adding calcium lowers dkh and adding buffer lowers calcium. Your dosing may be causing problems that you are not aware of.

[GaryP]

Good point Ed,

I disagree with a few fine points though. Adding calcium to a system won't necessarily drop the alkalinity IF its added properly and IF you are not overdosing either calcium or alkalinity to start with. There have been numerous posts on this and I won't re-hash them here. There is another factor involved here, and that is magnesium level. Magnesium acts to stabilize the calcium/carbonate reaction and prevents precipitation to some degree.

As for Instant Ocean, yes its a tried and true product that has been around for a long time. I, as well as a lot of other folks started off on it. It is, however, a product that was developed for FO tanks when reef tanks were not that practical. No salt is perfect. IMO, they all need supplementation to some degree. IO is high alkalinity and lower calcium. A high calcium product like Oceanic is lower in alkalinity but higher in calcium. You can never have both in the same package. Its just not chemically possible. The key is to know what product you are using and adjust your supplementation strategy for the product you are using. I have used both at different times with good results. There are several other good products out there.

I had a very long discussion with Paletta about Oceanic when he was here. He has been to their manufacturing site and what he told me reinforces some rumors I had heard about it. They make very small batches sizes that would make it harder to have a consistent product. That has been the suggested problem with it, a lack of consistent composition. Oceanic makes thousands pounds in a batch while Oceanic only makes a few hundred. A small measurement error would have a bigger impact on a small batch then a much larger one.

I may be wrong, but I don't believe calcium chloride is the main ingredient in purple up. I think it is finely ground aragonite (10 micron) and calcium chloride. Remember who makes Purple Up, Caribsea, the aragonite folks. There have been several of these aragonite based products appearing on the market recently. They claim the aragonite somehow dissolves to release calcium, trace minerals, and carbonate like what occurs in a calcium reactor. This is a bit of hocus pocus chemistry in my opinion. I just don't see it happening at the pH we operate our systems. I think the theory is that the aragonite settles on the live rock and because of a localized low pH due to bacterial activity it dissolves to release its components. That may occur to some degree, but I don't think its the best way to go about acheiving the results you want. A good two part like ESV is a much better way to get there. I think the chemical companies are try to dummy down water chemistry so that beginners and folks doing nanos can have a a 1 part product that they won't get into trouble with. I guess adding sand is their solution. I would rather see them try to educate their customers and distributors.

As to what its causing a crash, that's a mystery to me. My only theory is that folks using it think they are supplementing their system, and stop other forms of supplemts and they just aren't getting enough. Another theory is that these very small aragonite grains are getting into the corals and irritating the corals to the point that there is some death. Once the stuff starts to die, the water chemistry goes down hill fast. OK, one more theory. The crash of these systems have absolutely nothing to do with purple up. It wouldn't be the first time a product was blamed for a crash caused by some other problem simply because it was the most recent thing added to the system. A hobbyist using a product like purple up is probably at the low end of the experience scale and I would expect them to have more problems. In addition, you never know how the product was added, how much, how fast, etc. I think that's the biggest problems with most new aquariaists when it comes to handling hobbyists. They just look at the labels, read the recommended dosage and just pour it in. They are rarely going to be testing for calcium or alkalinity and when they don't get the reaction they want they just keep pouring it in.

Another problem is inexperienced or non-reefer staff at some LFS and pet stores. Its not their fault really, but they have a rep come in and tell them that this is the greatest product since sliced bread for the newbie reefers. Easy to use, does everything that more expensive 2 parts does, and costs less. If that was the only info you had on the product, wouldn't you recommend it too? This is exactly why MAAST and organizations like it need to reach out to these folks and get some good info to them. I know you have met more then a few people over the years that said they had tried saltwater but found it to hard, or to much work. Its neither really, but based on the information that they got at Petco, or the equivalent, its not surprising that they had problems.

The staff and management of some LFS have the mistaken belief that the there is a product to solve any problem. In some cases that is true, but unfortunately they may not have all the accurate information they need to make a good product recommendation. In other cases the solution may not involve any product at all, but rather better maintenance. Maybe the right product is just more salt, so they can do more frequent water changes. Putting more work into a tank is not the solution that a lot of newbies want to hear. They haven't gotten addicted yet. They want an immediate solution, like taking aspiring to cure a headache.

Here is a link to CaribSea's Purple Up page:

http://www.carib-sea.com/pages/products/marine/marineaddbuff.html

OK, that's my $.02 worth.

[miked78231]

nice!

[MikeyBoy]

Thats a pretty darn good read Gary.

Thats one thing that I can say for my system, I have not tried my snake oils.............just water changes and the absolute neccesary ones.
All is well and growth had been Fantastic.

[scuba_steveo]

Very good post Gary.

[GaryP]

TY fellas.

Did I tell you my other name? I'll give you a hint, my initals are RHF.

J/K

[jc]

I tried the snake oil and it did exactly what I thought it would. Nothing. The purple-up instructions say to use it to keep your calcium level above 400, but my level never goes that low to begin with. Water changes seem to do a fine job by themselves. Although I don't have many coral to begin with just 1 mushroom, a small bit of Green star polyp, and 2 clams. I think my coralline is sprending at the rate it would have if i did not add purple-up.

[GaryP]

MAAST received some as a sponsorship donation and a few of our folks tried it. No one noticed any difference. Its just a calcium supplement and has no real special properties that will make coaraline grow any faster then any other similar supplement. I never heard of it crashing anyone's tank though. Of course these may have been larger tanks then what a typical Purple Up user may have.

I'm not going to call it snake oil, but I will say there is more marketing then chemistry involved in the product. Besides, its pretty expensive considering its mainly water and sand. It does come in an awfully pretty bottle though.

[theedprado]

The problems experienced by the customers were in my opinion due to heavy doseing of calcium and no doseing of dkh. Since purple up contains "ionic calcium which immediately raises dissolved calcium levels in your aquarium water," they were essentialy doseing only one part of a two part solution. True, it is not really the fault of the product, if used properly it acts as an effective calcium supplement. I won a bottle when maast first recieved them from carib sea, and used it with no problems and little or no effect. However, I feel that begining reefers may be lured into using these additives without trulely understanding their effects. The advice is mainly directed to begining reefers, whose tanks do not depleat calcium and dkh like the full blown reefs many of us keep. I hate to see new reefers having problems, I really hate to see them having problems due to bad advice. Without new reefers the hobby would die along with us.

[GaryP]

I think you may be exactly correct Ed.

IMO, low alkalinity (buffering capacity) is a lot bigger problem then high calcium. Of course they can be part and parcel of the same problem. Calcium and alkalinity concentrations do not exist without an interaction. They are very much linked.

Not only does low alkalinity shut down coral and coraline algae growth, it also means there is low pH buffering. The carbonate/bicarbonate buffer that makes up most of the alkalinity concentration is what prevents large pH swings. pH swings cause stress in the critters in a tank. Once you start losing stuff, other water quality issues start to rear their ugly heads and that results in a crash. Small systems that a beginner is more likely to have are going to be even more suseptible to this because they have less volume to absorb waste from decaying animals. Excessive decay can drive the pH down even further. It just becomes an avalanche as water quality continues to degrade, resulting in more death and mayhem which it turn causes even worse water conditions.

[jap1]

Thanks for your help Ed. I fell for the sales pitch for Purple Up. I was just asking the guy what a good food for my corals would be (I meant as in Zoo and Phytoplankton) and I was told how great this Purple Up stuff was, even though they are COMPLETELY different products. I feel like such a sucker now. After dosing my tank (although not very much), my pH dropped by .2 within a few days. Now I'm using that dkh buffer you recommended to me last night and it has helped a bit. I guess after I get things back to normal I'm going to just leave it alone. Great discussion, thanks! This is something most of us newbies really need to hear.

[cpreefguy]

GaryP is a chem Genius :)

[GaryP]

Jap,

Test your water,
Test your water,
Test your water,
Test your water,
Test your water.

First rule for any additive, "if you can't test for it, don't add it." The recommended amount on the label is just a starting point. You need to adjust from that. The only way to adjust is to have test results to work from.

[GaryP]

GaryP is a chem Genius :)

Nope, but I did sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night. That was after I blew up my kitchen making DIY additives.

J/K.

[cpreefguy]

^LMAO

[jap1]

He he. Will do Gary. Although I really didn't have any ill effects, I have learned a good lesson. I need to get me some additional test kits!

[GaryP]

Sounds good Jap,

Let us know if we can help. That's why we are here.