Update on my reef. Everything was doing really great. The automation has been and continues to be outstanding. Unfortunately I was using Fritz salt mix and disaster struck about a year ago. I highly recommend everyone stay away from this brand.
I purchased a new bag. Mixed up my first batch and tested parameters. Everything checked out and after a couple months all my sps died. I was baffled as all of my numbers looked great and were stable, the reef was clean, I inspected all of the equipment and couldn't find out what happened. I tried adding a frag and it was instant death. I decided to test for copper. I'll be danged. Hanna meter says .17. I double checked with an API test kit. Sure enough, we have copper. I tested my RO water and it was zero. Mixed up a fresh batch of saltwater and sure enough. Copper.
I then started searching for threads and sure enough this company's salt mix has numerous reports of all sorts of heavy metals from lab test. I called the company and they didn't really care. It really sucks. It's one thing if I screw up and kill my reef, but it's entirely different to have a company selling a product that is the most essential to sustain marine life and it kills your reef.
Anyway, I was a bit demoralized. I switched back to Red Sea salt. I always used them in the past and had no issues except it mixes up a little dirty. I can live with that if it avoids killing my tank. Fortunately some things survived. Things you would expect like soft corals, which can take elevated heavy metals. A couple weeks ago I started cleaning up the reef and have since began rebuilding. SPS are now surviving. I will update with some pictures once I've got the tank re-stocked.
I purchased a new bag. Mixed up my first batch and tested parameters. Everything checked out and after a couple months all my sps died. I was baffled as all of my numbers looked great and were stable, the reef was clean, I inspected all of the equipment and couldn't find out what happened. I tried adding a frag and it was instant death. I decided to test for copper. I'll be danged. Hanna meter says .17. I double checked with an API test kit. Sure enough, we have copper. I tested my RO water and it was zero. Mixed up a fresh batch of saltwater and sure enough. Copper.
I then started searching for threads and sure enough this company's salt mix has numerous reports of all sorts of heavy metals from lab test. I called the company and they didn't really care. It really sucks. It's one thing if I screw up and kill my reef, but it's entirely different to have a company selling a product that is the most essential to sustain marine life and it kills your reef.
Anyway, I was a bit demoralized. I switched back to Red Sea salt. I always used them in the past and had no issues except it mixes up a little dirty. I can live with that if it avoids killing my tank. Fortunately some things survived. Things you would expect like soft corals, which can take elevated heavy metals. A couple weeks ago I started cleaning up the reef and have since began rebuilding. SPS are now surviving. I will update with some pictures once I've got the tank re-stocked.
