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hfp75
10-28-2014, 01:37 PM
I made a small batch of water last night and did a swap...

All seemed well - went to watch some TV, then off to talk to the wife. When all of a sudden I'm getting emails and txts from the APEX - Ph problems.....

Went to take a look and it was climbing..... normally I'm an 8+ kinda guy/tank. I was in a short order up to 8.8 and rising. I let it go for a bit to see what was going on and the Xenia and mushrooms went crazzy. - I knew I needed a solution. Considering my salt to be a complete liability more changes isn't an option. So, I am using Muratic Acid to keep the Ph as close to 8.3 as is earthly possible....

Last night dropped it to 8 & went to bed, got up at 7 and found it at 9.14 ouch!!! Muriatic Acid - back down.

This Salt was from Big Als on the Boxing Day sale earlier this year. I haven't had any problems with IO Reef Crystals until now. I will be calling them at 10 am!! and IO as soon as they open! I'll let ya know how they handle this situation.....

So far, all the corals look unhappy - expecting a few deaths... & no carcases that I can see.... there might be some deaths in the rocks...

I'm not very happy.....

Aquattro
10-28-2014, 02:00 PM
Second report here in a week of bad RC salt...

hfp75
10-28-2014, 02:05 PM
I just got off the phone with IO and they have sent me a UPS shipping sheet. They want a 2 cup sample of my salt. They will analyze it and get back to me. She said to hold onto my salt for now and to get more for the water changes from a different lot#. No F'*#%@'ing shxt....

I hope they don't ship me the "Mix this into your bucket solution" then your existing bad salt will theoretically be good... NO, I want new salt, and some acknowledgement this was a huge PITA and if things are dying some replacements.

Time to hit a store - this is an inconvenience.

reefwars
10-28-2014, 02:06 PM
Did you do a water test to verify the probe is accurate? Probes are notorious for this.


Fwiw , ph in your tank falls into place rather quickly for the new salt to raise your ph would be a temporary number while c02 went to work , the water change would have to be huge to change the whole systems ph value for 12 hrs , usually it goes back to average levels within a few hours.

Fwiw ...they don't add ph to a bucket...well they do but it's in the forum of alkalinity as the two are linked ( reson why its affected by c02) so test the Alk if it's through the roof you have your cause , if it's normal range then I would be looking at the testing device.

Hcl I would not be adding to a running tank , it's very aggressive and if your ph probe was out then you'll cause more harm then good .

Slyguy00
10-28-2014, 02:52 PM
Hmmm second report. I hope it just stays with reef Crystals and doesn't effect regular io. Let us know what instant ocean has to say about your salt.

miuYH
10-28-2014, 03:33 PM
When you say this was from a batch earlier this year... did you mean boxing day sale in 2013?

Sebae again
10-28-2014, 06:31 PM
I had a bad batch of RC earlier this year. IMO why there are not widespread cases are that maybe we end up with one of the first or last buckets from the hopper that the salt is mixed in. Sort of what happens in a sluice box . I am certain that the salt companies don't test individual buckets.

hfp75
10-28-2014, 06:34 PM
Good Advise Denny!!!

Used an old API Ph test and the Tap water came back at 7.8'ish and the Apex reported it at 9+

So, I dug around and found a Ph calibration 4 & 10 set and recalibrated and it was the Apex... totally weird as nothing there changed, it started reporting new numbers after the water change I did yesterday (which was small). I should have though of that sooner.

Needless to say my tank was reading 7.1 (ouch) I have started adding buffer and ALK to get things balanced up somewhat... not to fast not to slow.

At the same time I have a 25% water change on the way, and will do another right after. Ill try to add buffer/Alk & raise things up a bit here and just let the changes do the rest. I hate adding and manipulating this tank as I think it being left alone is the most reliable....

I'll test my Ph on the new H2o before I change it in/out.

I am most frustrated with my Apex Ph probe.... I'll fix this Ph problem but any ideas why the apex would uncalibrate like that?

So, Ill add that it is probably not the IO Reef Crystals at this point... Yes my IO R.C. were from the B.A. boxing day sale in 2013....

reefwars
10-28-2014, 06:55 PM
In any case though this is a good lesson to be taught , always test your first (even last cup) in a bucket or box , bad salts are an easy possibility and they happen all the time so don't trust salt mixes , the other being always verify things with a different test/type .

Fwiw a ph reading of 9 would be fatal to the animals and would be very hard to achieve , the same can be said for very very low readings.....when these appear something is a miss and it's usually the testing error

I would Test your Alk levels now as well to just to be on the safe side :)

Good luck man a bad batch of salt would have been way harder to resolve as you don't always know what in the salt is doing the damage , equipment failures start you in the right direction right away :)

reefwars
10-28-2014, 06:59 PM
As for the apex coming out of calibration wher in the sump do you keep it? And this is a new move right from the other house maybe something happened during the move and re setup? Hard to say mines been out of whack for a long time like yours reads 9 lol

hfp75
10-28-2014, 07:00 PM
I tested by ALK yesterday after the change at 10-11 then last night I tested and it was 8 after some acid... I did some more acid after that so I am guessing its a 6'ish.... ph is otw up and I have added some alk back in also.

Im not gonna dose to crazy as I want to just change out the water and get rid of the problem down the drain....

but I want to 'zero' the tank over a day or two....

this is frustrating, I have better things to do today.

Anyone have such an issue with the apex before?

reefwars
10-28-2014, 07:05 PM
Yeah I'd go easy on the Alk additions , especially the kalk as its adding calcium as well and likely your calcium wasn't affected much by the acid , slowly over the course of a week raise it with soda ash or bicarbonate

I had my doser go wonky and overdosed my Alk so these kind of things happen its a learning curve :)

hfp75
10-28-2014, 08:28 PM
so far nothing I can see has died.... things look a bit unhappy, but to be expected.

The Ph probe has been working just fine since the move, so I didnt see any reason to recalibrate it. The Ph / Temp probes are in the overflow.

monza
10-28-2014, 10:13 PM
How old is the probe? They do need replacing generally every couple of years or so, maybe sooner if they start acting up.

Muratic Acid to your reef tank, IMO that sounds like a shocking crazy thing to add to a reef tank??

ronau
10-28-2014, 10:50 PM
so far nothing I can see has died.... things look a bit unhappy, but to be expected.

The Ph probe has been working just fine since the move, so I didnt see any reason to recalibrate it. The Ph / Temp probes are in the overflow.

If you have the solutions out, you might as well calibrate it. It takes 5 minutes and then you'll know.

hfp75
10-28-2014, 11:48 PM
If you have the solutions out, you might as well calibrate it. It takes 5 minutes and then you'll know.


Its already recalibrated.... First 10+% water change done... second one is mixing....

thats like a 15% change today of the original water.... if I do the same tomorrow.... another 2x 10% then thats 33% of the original water gone in 2 days.... I'll keep this up for a week or so until I'm at a 70/30 split....

hfp75
10-29-2014, 05:24 AM
I got busy and did more water changes with larger containers... might be neurotic but I have changed a total of 52g over 2 changes... so on the fractional water change math, its 46g of new!!! out of 107g. I'm satisfied - for tonight.

Tonight while making dinner I ended up cutting my thumb :onfire: and a few minutes later was standing looking into a box where my frag'ing stuff was and saw my Gorilla Glue. Yep, the cut is sealed!!

great stuff...

DSlater
11-01-2014, 06:06 AM
Gorilla glue is great stuff but do you actually use it for fragging? Thought it was about as toxic as it gets...

hfp75
11-01-2014, 03:12 PM
I use it on frags nothing bad so far..."

hfp75
11-02-2014, 03:39 PM
My ph probe has bit the dust... Weird it won't stay calibrated... Need another.

This whole thing was a probe problem....