Problems with Kent salt

[christyf5]

I bought a couple buckets just before Christmas. Cracked the first one open pretty much right away. Everything was fine with it. I just opened the second one weekend before last. When I moved my tank I made up about 48gal of new water with it. Didn't really notice as I was a bit frazzled but after scoping out the tank in its new digs after it was all put together, the water looked a bit cloudy, not quite clear. I figured it was just a byproduct of the move. Then last weekend I did my regular 15g water change and noticed that I couldn't see into the bottom of the bucket after mixing the salt. Usually it clears up within about 5 mins. This stuff still wasn't clear after an hour. I tested all the params I could test for and everything came out about normal (I thought). Alk=12 Ca=450 hmm now that I think of it I couldn't find my mg test kit (probably still packed). I did the water change anyway as it looked fine and has had no adverse effects on my tank. There was a fair bit of color loss which I had attributed to the move as things are perking up again. Anyway, I bought a bucket of IO. Sure enough its not just me, it mixes up right quick.

So I was just wondering, if anyone can remember that far back if they had any issues with kent salt in january or so. It was weird as I had bought two buckets, one was fine the other not so much. I didn't check lot numbers or anything.

[BMW Rider]

There was the low alk problem about a year or so back. Maybe you got an old bucket from that batch. Since that event, I've quit using Kent salt.

[Chowder]

If I remmember correctly my bad bucket of salt (low dkh) from last Christmas was cloudy as well. Ended up using it as a ice melter. I too have since stopped using kent salt and products.

[Salmon King]

I run into the same problem with Instant ocean.I put it in my tank and ended up doing another water change because the tank went cloudy.When it happens now I just dump it.

[christyf5]

Its just occurred to me that all of my inverts (snails, urchin and abalone) are pretty much in the same position as they were last weekend. they haven't moved an inch.

How does one know when they've kicked off? The urchin is still swirling his little tentacle-y bits so he's ok. Sometimes he isn't much on movement. However usually the snails are motoring around.:neutral:

The tank does clear eventually, I thought maybe I could get away with just using a cup to two cups of IO (not standard measuring cups) but it still went cloudy. Guess I'll be using that Kent to kill weeds in the driveway :razz:

[Jason McK]

I stopped using Kent because of the amount of crap left in the mixing bucket. I talked to a friend who used a maxijet with the filter to mix his salt and needed to replace the filter it got so clogged. It's just too dirty to use.
I mix salt over several days so by the time I am adding it to the tank it would be clear but still my bucket required scrubbing each time

Aside for the dirt all levels were fine

[Delphinus]

I always could tell when an urchin had kicked off by the spineless empty shell of it that I would find. :p

When I moved my abalone from one tank to another, it would sit in one spot for well past a week. I thought it was a goner but eventually sprang back to life.

Couple months back I bought another abalone, a really wee little 1.5" thing and it did the same thing, sat in a spot for weeks. Thinking that this was normal I didn't think much of it ... until I found it half eaten by the CBB. So ... I guess somehow the tankmates know a little better when something's checked out than I do. I guess what I'm getting at, if it doesn't look like the other critters are eating pieces of them then they might not yet be dead. Hopefully they come around.

[Chad]

My tank went to the crapper last time I used Kent (this was the new buckets with the batch numbers) . Once I switched to Tropic Marine Pro and since then the tank has been outstanding

[EmilyB]

Christy, I ran into a bucket out of some I ordered as well. Actually the rest of the bucket seemed to be fine. I dumped the cloudy one mix. And it seemed that it was one mix for me, I tried again and it was fine.



I had ordered four buckets from J&L.

[christyf5]

Well its lookin like its back to IO for me for now. I did manage to see a couple of snails trucking along. Others were in the same spot all weekend. The urchin didn't move much but thats nothing new, sometimes he stays in the same spot for days.

One funny thing I noticed. All my red banded turbo snails died (or were preyed upon by something as they are now empty shells). Granted I only had about 4 of them but my Astreas "seem" fine and are just hanging out. I wonder if the red banded ones are more sensitive?

[kwirky]

Kent was my first bucket of salt I ever bought, and after that it was ocean pure pro. I just like ocean pure pro so much better, mainly because of it's high alk/calcium/mag, and it mixes so damned fast.

I found with oceanpure pro I have to make sure I heat the water to the temperature I want it BEFORE adding the salt, or else the rapid heating of the salt water causes it to drop lots it's alkalinity. Dunno why.

Oh and I did notice a difference between oceanpure, and oceanpure pro. the pro has higher calc/alkalinity, but both have very high mag (~1500)

No experience with instant ocean, but I haven't felt a real need to switch.

[Jason McK]

Kent was my first bucket of salt I ever bought, and after that it was ocean pure pro. I just like ocean pure pro so much better, mainly because of it's high alk/calcium/mag, and it mixes so damned fast.

I found with oceanpure pro I have to make sure I heat the water to the temperature I want it BEFORE adding the salt, or else the rapid heating of the salt water causes it to drop lots it's alkalinity. Dunno why.

Oh and I did notice a difference between oceanpure, and oceanpure pro. the pro has higher calc/alkalinity, but both have very high mag (~1500)

No experience with instant ocean, but I haven't felt a real need to switch.

I just abandoned Oceanpure Pro due to massive lack of Alk in 2 pals. Make sure you test. I even found differences in the bags inside the pals had different ALK reading.

[fishface]

Oh and I did notice a difference between oceanpure, and oceanpure pro. the pro has higher calc/alkalinity, but both have very high mag (~1500)

i'm sure not seeing this from my experience at all...

[BCOrchidGuy]

Christy, one thing you may want to try just incase the bucket wasn't mixed up properly or contents settled out somehow is to add enough water to the bucket of salt to make a soup. Mix this up well, churn it over, stir it etc... make up a batch of new water with this and see if it makes a difference in regards to cloudiness etc...
Hope that works for you, next time your over on the mainland Hidden Reef sells Oceanpure buckets for $29 not sure about the pro.

Doug