Red Sea Coral Salt question

[350gt]

do you all having sludge problems wash all your gear after using it. I used to not care and notice the same brown stuff in my mixing tank. now I wash everything with fresh water after each use

also polar bear are you running any carbon, filter floss or socks?? my tank goes cloudy for few hours after i do a water change

Chris IDK if it was the same stuff but JT knows what I am talking about..... He had a problem with that salt too.

I would have to take my container to the car wash to get it off and it would come back...... No rag and water would clean it.. I really clean my stuff now after each use. But that other stuff would form while you were mixing the salt and would cake up on the sides and the pumps and hoses, even my heater.. EVERYTHING!.. lol, I gave up on that salt and thought maybe it was a bad batch..... I went back to RC..

I bought a new brute and I never get that stuff while using RC...

[Gseclipse02]

SALT WAS JUNK ... rep was crappy IMO and i wouldn't use a product of that company's again ... lost fish lost corals and only variable was the salt ...


use reef crystals boxes better bang for the buck

[Big_Pun]

SALT WAS JUNK ... rep was crappy IMO and i wouldn't use a product of that company's again ... lost fish lost corals and only variable was the salt ...


use reef crystals boxes better bang for the buck

but you didn't have tests to see what actually killed everything. i used 3 buckets before tearing down my old 70g tank. i used reef crystals for a year and it always turned brown. I stopped having probs when I started monitoring my RO/DI unit and changing out as soon as it crept above 2-3 TDS. alot of factors could have led to your expierence. bad water can make salts act funny, also you could of got a bad batch but more people would have had probs across the U.S. again without test you can't know for sure.

[Ms_Big_Pun]

I've been using red sea in my 20 gallon with no problems. I've never had cloudiness while mixing the water and it mixes pretty quickly. I don't add a ton at a time and usually when I check my salinity (with a refractometer) it's very low...so I go from there slowly. Everything in my little tank looks great and I get nice growth in it. No problems with loss of fish or coral.

[Gseclipse02]

it was my only variable that was changed when everything started to crash the more water changes i did the worst it got .... at the time i would always keep up with my rodi ... low tds for the most part

[Big_Pun]

it was my only variable that was changed when everything started to crash the more water changes i did the worst it got .... at the time i would always keep up with my rodi ... low tds for the most part

did you catch that article in why not to hook up a RO/DI directly. it mentioned a couple people where construction near by got contaminants in pipes and that it got threw the filters and killed everything , just has to be near by.

http://www.melevsreef.com/rodi_recipe_for_disaster.html

[alton]

Well I did another water change today and even though the water was slightly cloudy in the bucket my tank sure looks great after the water change. If I am guessing correctly they are adding so much buffer that with the amount of calcium everything is having a hard time mixing clear? Remember the majority of the salt in the bucket is from the Red Sea with extra additives.

[FireWater]

I do a 20g a week change on my tank and have used the Red Sea Pro for over a year now. No issues.

You have to add it slowly as Chris and Alton said. I am using approximately 1/2 cup per gallon and that gets me close. I add 2 cups at a time and wait for the water to clear up before adding more. I mix the water a day before using it - so if I know I want to do my water change tomorrow night I will set everything up tonight to mix. One key I have found that helps me is strong pumps to mix and using aeration, I use 2 older Koralia 4s in a 32g Brute can. I use clean water and vinegar every other month to clean the pumps and mixing container because you will get a little residue that builds up.

One other thing that I do is test the new water prior to adding it to the tank to check params. I have not had the issues of low kalk yet though.