Slow Progress?

[Theaviator]

I want to start off by saying thank you to anyone that offers help. I decided to start a tank about 6 months ago. I bought a rimless 78 gallon tank with a crystaline sump. After doing research, I thought it would be financially beneficial to buy my own RODI unit, i also added a TDS meter to the unit to make sure it was running correctly. After getting my water straight, My LFS recommended fritz salt. Which I bought, mixed at 1.023 SG and added it to my tank along with dry rock that I soaked in RODI water, live sand, and a skimmer in the sump.
I bought BioSpira to start cycling my tank and got an API test kit to test along the way. I decided to add ammonia instead of fish to go the more humane way.
At this point I kept adding ammonia when I saw the levels drop to zero. Eventually my tank was able to drop ammonia levels to zero within about 24 hours. I did about an 80% water change and decided to add fish.
My LFS recommended 2 chromis, 5 snails and a conch. After drip acclimating everything, I added to the tank.
One of my chromis died the next day. All 5 snails died within the week. I did some research and found out high magnesium could be the cause. After testing my tank, it showed well over 2000ppm of magnesium. Not sure how this could happen I decided to do a massive water change to hopefully bring this down. I mixed about 40 gallons of water with fritz salt in a trash bin with a pump and let it sit. I tested the next day for magnesium and again 2000ppm! It has to be the salt at this point.
My LFS also recommended I start vodka dosing. Which I did and slowly ramped up to 2mL of vodka. Which quickly caused white slime to build in my tank. So I stopped dosing.

I’m a bit at a loss where to go from here. I need to get the magnesium down I’m thinking, before I can add anything else. Not sure if it’s really that bad but I don’t want to risk killing anything else. So I think I’ll try instant ocean salt. Maybe that will help. If that works. What’s the next step for me? Add another fish? Get the water under control. This hobby is becoming over whelming quickly.

Sorry about the long post but thanks for any help I can get.

 

[Spare time]

1. Yes magnesium that high would kill inverts but the test kit could be off (it that is the only parameter really high)

2. the snails have nothing to eat at first and people usually don't recommend them until maybe a week or so or whenever you start needing to clean the glass

3. vodka dosing requires a skimmer properly broken in and tuned and there is no point to vodka dosing wiht only 1 fish. What it does is provide carbon atoms for bacteria to reproduce which uses nitrate and phosphate to build themselves. they are then skimmed out and the nitrate and phosphate are out of the system. That slime is bacteria. You esentially have no nitrate or phosphate and if those end up at 0 you will run into dinos.

4. If you plan on clownfish, they are a great starter fish as they are hardy. If you are concerned about ammonia or something spiking, you can dose seachem prime or similar and some nitrifying bacteria as a caution.


Also, don't worry about a few bumps. They all work out eventually and everyone has a few little bumps here and there

 

[Peach02]

ive never heard of anything like this, maybe test your water after mixing before putting it in the tank (in the mixing bucket)

 

[Theaviator]

So actually. Clown fish were what I wanted to add first. However, the thought of killing them scared me a bit. Plus my LFS wouldn’t sell them to me until I could prove I could keep things alive. I’m going on 3 weeks and the one chromis and conch is still alive. So I think that’s a start. As for mixing the water first, that’s exactly what I did this time. So I tested my RODI water just to make sure there was no magnesium. It was reading zero. Then I put the water in a trash bin with the salt and a pump. Tested it a day later and I get 2000ppm of magnesium. I even took it to the fish store just in case my test was inaccurate. They confirmed the results. So to me, it has to be coming from the Fritz Salt.
Thanks for the encouragement. I need it right about now. Just want to start seeing success.

 

[BeejReef]

Don't beat yourself up. That was a very responsible and incremental start.
A full tank shot might be helpful.

That is crazy high magnesium, especially with your somewhat weak salinity. Good job having LFS confirm.
If you believe your testing and the lfs testing, then a bad batch of salt is pretty much the necessary conclusion.
Also possible you might benefit from shaking and mixing your dry salt.... "roll the bucket".... to make sure the elements are evenly distributed throughout the powder.

Chromis are notorious for going after each other.
Maybe a little quick on the trigger for that many snails.

Nothing jumping off the page as flagrantly horrible advise from the lfs, but, I'd stick with reef2reef advise over most lfs. As mentioned, no real need for carbon dosing on a brand new tank. Find a few voices on here you trust. You'll go far. You've already shown great patience, attention to detail, and a willingness to do your own research.

 

[Theaviator]

Seriously. Thank you!

so I never knew about shaking the salt until after the fact. However, when I made the new batch of water. I did shake the bag until it actually ripped open. So I was hoping it was good enough.
I was reading the package and it does say “enhanced magnesium” would they put this much magnesium in a bag of salt?
Now for the future of the tank. Should I just try and lower the magnesium before adding anything else? Maybe do weekly water changes until it goes down? Also, should I slowly raise the salinity? Maybe 1.026?

 

[BeejReef]

If you truly have a dud box of salt, water changes won't bring it down.
Usually, people are advised that magnesium will come down on its own, but that could take quite a while in a brand new tank that hasn't yet started consuming alk/calc, mag.

How much suspect salt did you buy? A lot of peeps use that brand and swear by it. There was a bit of a fuss over it a while ago though. There were a number of reported issues.... probably with a particular run or batch from the manufacturer. Any chance your lfs tried to offload some old stock on u?

If you have more salt than you're willing to toss, u could always buy more of a different brand... something with pretty bland parameters, and mix the two together.

Salinity depends on whether you're doing fowlr or plan on corals. I'll defer to longtime reefers on that one. Just be sure that any changes you make to salinity are done real gradual.

 

[Theaviator]

Originally when I set up the tank. I bought the big box of Fritz salt. I never tested for salinity in the beginning so I’m not sure what it was then. After my cycle and a water change (using the same salt). That’s when I tested for magnesium. After the first snails died. I stopped using the salt and bought a small bag of the salt. That’s the salt I tested in the trash bin without putting it in my tank. Which was very high magnesium. I’m not sure how long the bags were there for, I doubt my store would sell me a known bad batch. But you never know I guess.
I was thinking about switching to instant ocean and doing a bunch of water changes every week or so. Is this a good salt for lowering magnesium?

 

[TheKyle]

Sorry you lost you’re chromis. These fish have a bad habit of coming in diseased. Did the one that died have red spots on them when it died? This could be a sign of uronema marinum. Very difficult to treat. A quick google search will show you what that looks like.

 

[Theaviator]

I didn’t notice any spots. From the time I put him in the tank though. He just swam to the corner and sat nose up. Then the next day he was dead. The second one is doing great! Except the time he appeared to “choke” on food input in there. Seriously strange. He flipped upside down and sank. Then spit out food and swam away. Still doing good today.

 

[TheKyle]

I didn’t notice any spots. From the time I put him in the tank though. He just swam to the corner and sat nose up. Then the next day he was dead. The second one is doing great! Except the time he appeared to “choke” on food input in there. Seriously strange. He flipped upside down and sank. Then spit out food and swam away. Still doing good today.

That’s good news all things considered. These fish have a reputation for being very hardy if they can make it past the first couple weeks. But in groups they do tend to thin out the numbers when they mature. I started with 15 in my 210g about three years ago. Now I have 7 left living peacefully now. Very cool fish but you have to be ready for possibility of a few losses down the road if you want to try them again.

 

[TheKyle]

Btw I too use fritz salt, blue box, but have never had high magnesium like this.

 

[W1ngz]

Can we get numbers on calcium and alkalinity too? My bet is they will also show high.
What are you using to test salinity?

You may have a bad batch of salt, but Fritz has a pretty good reputation. I think more likely this is a testing problem, or the salinity is higher than you think it is.

 

[Theaviator]

I’m using a refractometer to test salinity. It’s pretty well calibrated as I also use it to brew beer with. So I can vouch for it’s accuracy. I don’t have a test kit for calcium. But I did have my LFS test for this as well. Calcium was 500 and alkalinity is 8.0.

 

[ReefReadyYouTube]

Where did you buy your rocks from that you have in there?
could be leaching from the rocks?

 

[Theaviator]

I thought that too. However, the latest high magnesium test came from a fresh batch of water that I didn’t even put in the tank yet. I basically tested my RODI water. Tested 0 magnesium. Then put water in a trash bin and added salt. Now 2000ppm. So that’s why I came to the conclusion is was the salt. Even though I used a new bag of salt.

 

[W1ngz]

With calcium at 500 and mag at 2000,I'm suspicious of your refractometer. I'd be trying to corroborate that result with someone or something else.

 

[Indytraveler83]

If I were you, id buy a very small quantity of cheap salt, like the basic instant ocean (not reef crystals if mag is already too high). Mix it and test it. See if things come back more in line.

If they do, you've isolated the problem to the Fritz salt, and I'd stop using it. If the tests still come back with high mag, then something else is amiss.

 

[Theaviator]

You may be onto something. I just tested the water with a hydrometer. 1.034! Somehow it looks as though my refractometer got way off!

 

[W1ngz]

You may be onto something. I just tested the water with a hydrometer. 1.034! Somehow it looks as though my refractometer got way off!

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