Fritz Salt Issues?

[DirtMcGurt]

I’ve been using the Fritz RPM blue box the past couple of months and I’ll say I’m not that impressed. The synthetic salt seems to brown stain my mixing jugs and cakes real bad on my funnel and scooper. Corals seem meh and fading in color. After this 200 gallon box I’m switching back to Red Sea Blue Bucket. May be worth it if you start a tank using it but imho it’s not good for my 3 year established tank.

My fritz has never stained any container or left residue. That's one reason I switched to it. Also, I've never had it cake up but I use an open lid container so I dont need a funnel. My corals look better now then when I used IO. Maybe you got a weird batch. Idk.

 

[fcmatt]

My fritz has never stained any container or left residue. That's one reason I switched to it. Also, I've never had it cake up but I use an open lid container so I dont need a funnel. My corals look better now then when I used IO. Maybe you got a weird batch. Idk.

I agree with no staining or brown stuff with fritz. That has only happened to me with io reef crystals a decade ago. Never used again.

 

[Bryknicks]

I agree. When I was using IO I would have to clean my mixing station once every month or two due to the crazy amount of brown caking agent left over. I have yet to need to clean my mixing station since switching to fritz blue and don't have any remnants left over in the barrel.

 

[NanoDJS]

IO reef crystals has the ferrous oxide as an ingredient, not Fritz , my mixing buckets are clean , and I haven't even rinsed them in 4 years , I think something else happened there also . And people with the Monti claim , I have every high end collector monti $$ plus grow out reg/rare caps into massive colonies to sell on the regular. Not sure why you think its the salt , rather than other radical chemistry going on which will cause your montis to be more light sensitive . Lets see these before and after claim pictures ? Lets see this massive change you speak of , when you blame it on the Fritz , I suspect its always something else, and mis-diagnosed on the salt being bad cause its the only thing they did differant. Nobody ever says hey my lights were too high for like 3 months the coral finally quit ....... this is most likely what has been happening to all the monti people , or pests they cant see.

 

[fcmatt]

I started to reread this thread from the beginning for several plus pages but my eyes glazed over.

Why do I get the feeling that half the problems are people switching from a salt that has alk of 10+ to fritz (8 alk) which is more like natural sea water of 7... doing a big water change in excitement and then having problems with coral? I failed to spot most people saying how they adjusted reg io alk down to 8ish or what their alk was before dumping in a 25% water change of fritz with no adjustments.

If I did anything close to that my tank would go berserk. It took me a long time to switch over to it letting alk go down ever so slowly because my tank does not have a ton of coral compared to others.

Dunno. Some members posting have a decade plus of experience versus others which have less then 5. One has to really examine the messenger in these types of threads.

 

[vetteguy53081]

One comment I can make . . . . . .
This is not an ongoing issue but was. Fritz this Past fall DID have a bad batch or Lot but could not catch it in time as it was already distributed and sold. While the consumer can be warned- a message would NOT reach all of them.
I believe the issue has been rectified as Fritz acted on it when discovered.
Fritz has been a top name salt mix and I hope they regain the trust they have endured in the industry.

 

[NanoDJS]

I have a post on this exact salt that went fanboy sidewaYs fast , YEARS AGO. My consolation was to leave the boards for a few years , and grow some corals out (in Fritz) came back , still have the same corals ( and a bunch more) and still fraggin n trading away Havent used anyting but Frtiz the whole time. It must be a conspiracy! I have corals going for over 20 years and somehow with all my naive ignorance...... Lolz The best part is they made the salt because they are hobbiest's, who happen to run one of the biggest salt mixing companys for industry, and had access to pharma grade product to make a "perfect salt" so I thank them for it , and so far its the best ive seen or used outa all of the brands available for us and our coral. They need this part of the bussiness like a hole in the head.
Remember that, they also thought the other companys were gouging you and me , so thats why its acutally priced correctly.

 

[fcmatt]

One comment I can make . . . . . .
This is not an ongoing issue but was. Fritz this Past fall DID have a bad batch or Lot but could not catch it in time as it was already distributed and sold. While the consumer can be warned- a message would NOT reach all of them.
I believe the issue has been rectified as Fritz acted on it when discovered.
Fritz has been a top name salt mix and I hope they regain the trust they have endured in the industry.

Did they say what was wrong with the salt exactly because almost every salt has had a bad batch but time and time again with no actual bad batches people bash a salt due to what they think is the cause.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Did they say what was wrong with the salt exactly?

Yes- moisture got to the batch and broke down many of the elements contaminating the batch

 

[fcmatt]

Yes- moisture got to the batch and broke down many of the elements contaminating the batch

Doesn't moisture cause bricking? Did people with bad batches notice clumping or other irregularities with it? Or was it super fine and like a powder/dust still? Like I said.. rereading 25 pages.. ugh. Better to summarize at the end with info like yours.

Good info. Thank you for posting. Because there are some members here who have a lot of experience reporting an issue surrounded by some I know less about.

 

[vetteguy53081]

High level will cause the bricking. It was more of a compound/elements issue

 

[NanoDJS]

Yes- moisture got to the batch and broke down many of the elements contaminating the batch

I got one of those , noticed the water in the bottom of the bag (precipitate ) and exchanged it. It was very obvious.

 

[AdamNC]

My fritz has never stained any container or left residue. That's one reason I switched to it. Also, I've never had it cake up but I use an open lid container so I dont need a funnel. My corals look better now then when I used IO. Maybe you got a weird batch. Idk.

If I remember I'll take a pic of my scooper and funnel this Thursday and show you what I mean. It's dosen't appear to be moist as I've seperated it into multiple old Red Sea 15kg buckets hoping to keep it fresher but it sticks to everything really bad and Red Sea did not batch after batch.

 

[AdamNC]

My fritz has never stained any container or left residue. That's one reason I switched to it. Also, I've never had it cake up but I use an open lid container so I dont need a funnel. My corals look better now then when I used IO. Maybe you got a weird batch. Idk.

I’ve since cleaned my mixing jugs out but here’s what it leaves on the 1 cup scooper.

Red Sea usually only left a real fine dust, but this is a thick crud.

 

[Bryknicks]

That is from moisture and happened once when I got a bad batch of IORC. The residue that most people refer too is usually a brown residue that is an anti-caking agent that some salt makers. I only see a fine dust on my scooper when I'm finished like you had with Red Sea.

 

[PhreeByrd]

That looks like salt to me, AdamNC.
Salt being hygroscopic, and the Fritz salt being so finely crystallized, it very easily sticks to and builds up on scoops and such, especially if there is any moisture or high humidity.

What I see in the photo looks pretty normal to me. I just try to limit the salt mix's exposure to air, and rinse my scoops. I've never experienced any bricking in the boxes/bags.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I agree. When I was using IO I would have to clean my mixing station once every month or two due to the crazy amount of brown caking agent left over. I have yet to need to clean my mixing station since switching to fritz blue and don't have any remnants left over in the barrel.

You "had to", or you wanted to? I'm not sure it was harming anything.

 

[Bryknicks]

You "had to", or you wanted to? I'm not sure it was harming anything.

I did not "have to" but since my mixing station feeds straight to my tank for water changes the floating debris would make it into my tank and it would bother me when it would be floating around and even getting stuck along my sump walls. I have a particular attention to detail so it drove me crazy. Glad I made the switch for the limited increase in price.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Yes- moisture got to the batch and broke down many of the elements contaminating the batch

lol

I don't mean to be critical of you, since they said it, but this is a science forum and I try to ensure things are actually correct if I read them here.

An element is something like H (hydrogen) or Na (sodium) or Cl (chlorine) or Ca (calcium). With the exception of radioactive elements in the batch (of which there certainly are some tiny amounts, such as carbon 14 in the bicarbonate that slowly converts into nitrogen). No normal elements are ever transformed into other elements.

When moisture enters a salt mix, the main things that happen are:

1. Some salt dissolves into tiny water droplets in the mix, and they can then reprecipitate, linking grains together and clumping the mix. This is no concern and the mix is still good, but might get hard as a rock.

2. There is some dissolution of calcium chloride (maybe also magnesuum chloride and/or sulfate) and sodium carbonate/bicarbonate into tiny droplets of moisture. That allows formation of calcium/magnesium carbonate. That material will not dissolve when you try to use the salt mix, and lower alk in the settled mix is the indicator that this has happened.

I discuss the precipitates in salt mixes here:

What is that Precipitate in My Reef Aquarium? by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-07/rhf/index.htm

from it:

Figure 1. The residue on the bottom of the plastic trash can that I use to mix Instant Ocean. I rarely clean it out. The solid is most likely calcium carbonate.

Solid Residues Remaining After Preparing Artificial Seawater

Most salt mixes leave behind a solid residue when dissolved, although the extent to which this occurs varies from brand to brand. I use Instant Ocean and rarely clean out the 44-gallon trashcan that I mix it in, so a significant residue builds up over time (Figure 1). In preparation for this article I removed some of this solid material, and found that it could be almost completely dissolved in hydrochloric acid with lots of bubbling. This demonstrates that these solids were probably calcium carbonate (CaCO3), perhaps also containing magnesium. Pure magnesium carbonate is undersaturated in seawater (which is detailed in later sections of this article) 1 and should dissolve in marine systems, so it isn't likely to be the precipitated material, although there may be significant magnesium in the calcium carbonate.

Based on the fact that the material exists as sheets that clearly did not arrive in the mix (as opposed to a fine powder which might have), I conclude that at least a significant fraction of this residue formed in the barrel. I cannot, however, rule out the possibility that some solid calcium or magnesium carbonate may have existed in the salt mix and was cemented together by additional precipitation of calcium carbonate during dissolution or storage.

When salt mixes are dissolved, there exist local regions where the salt concentration is very high. In those local regions, the calcium and alkalinity must also be very high. In fact, as seawater is concentrated by evaporation, there is a well-established series of minerals that precipitate as the salinity increases. In this series, calcium and magnesium carbonate are the first to precipitate, appearing at a specific gravity of about 1.140, which is about a 50% solution of salt in water.1 Such conditions may well exist on the bottom of a saltwater reservoir as the salt is dissolving.

With some mixes (but not the Instant Ocean that I use), the initial pH on dissolution may be very high (pH 8.5-9 +). As shown in detail later in this article, pH can play a dominant role in determining the rate of calcium carbonate precipitation, and such a high pH would make it more likely to precipitate.

It has been suggested by some aquarists that some salt mixes may contain anti-caking agents, such as clays. I do not know if this is true, but if it is, they may form part of the residue that is left behind after dissolution.

In order to minimize the formation of insoluble carbonate salts when mixing, the following suggestions may be helpful:

1. Add the salt to a full batch of water, rather than adding water slowly to a large batch of salt. The latter allows a greater time at much higher than natural seawater salinity, which may tend to precipitate calcium and magnesium salts.
2. Stir the mixture vigorously as it is being dissolved.
3. If using a mix with a high initial pH, aerate the mixture as well as stirring it. The aeration will reduce the pH.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I did not "have to" but since my mixing station feeds straight to my tank for water changes the floating debris would make it into my tank and it would bother me when it would be floating around and even getting stuck along my sump walls. I have a particular attention to detail so it drove me crazy. Glad I made the switch for the limited increase in price.

I don't want to debate this too extensively since choosing a different mix is a perfectly fine thing to do for any reason you have, but if you let the mix settle, solids won't get into the tank. See my picture above, where my solids stayed behind.