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Tank Crash

Pretty much lost all of my SPS in my tank. Don't know what happened everything started dieing off and then I go cyano and now I have hair algea. On the bright side, fish are doing great. I swear this all started when I switched to Red Sea Coral Pro salt. I'n not sure what to do. I'm thinking of going fish only or maybe rics or acans. I really want SPS, but I can't afford to invest all that money again. I'l say this though, if I ever do SPS again, I'm going to pick 4 or 5 of my favorite ones and that's it.

First things first though, I have to get rid of this hair algea and see how everything progresses.
 

Fish Brain

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Mike, this is terrible news! :(

What salt were you using before you switched to the red sea?
 
You're not the first person to post problems like this. My brother had the same exact problem and was debating on if it was his LED's being too bright or salt. He switched from Reef Crystals to Red Sea..... And problems began! I swear there's something to this.
 
All told true, but to be fair I had quite a few changes going on prior to my crash and was not privy to a good QT process. Also had a few months with red sea coral pro where everything looked ok in the 90. Trying to figure out the cause has been like nailing jello to a tree. I have since switched salts to IO RC as a precaution and cranked my leds way down. Lost close to 50+ frags, a huge wall hammer and all my lps/sps. Had a nasty algae or Dino outbreak right after the crash as well, my algae scrubber kept it in check but was still noticeable in the DT. I cried and moaned for 2 week, even put my tank up on eBay, but am picking myself up by the boot straps and going at it again. Gonna look at a fallow tank for another month while I ponder my next purchase... Hope you find your way.
 
I had problems with the salt mixing. lots of precipitation no matter how slow i would add salt. alk says 12.2 on bucket was more like 14.5 when i would test batch. if you read around a bunch of people have problems with this brand salt.
 
Hate to hear that others had problems with Red Sea, but also glad I'm not alone. Kicking myself for buying that bucket and can't even remember why I switched salts in the first place.
 
Terrible situation I am sure. I personally have used Red Sea Coral Pro for about a year without issues. I have read so many different things about salt types, and how everyone has good and bad experiences. I almost switched to AquaVitro, just because I read some positive things. Then as I dug in I also read some bad things. I stick with what I started with because it is working. If I started to have problems I would switch, the problem is I would be concerned about switching to anything because of negative feedback on all products. Guess that is the pro and con of the internet, you hear everything.
 

ecam

President
Staff member
Board of Directors
NJRC Member
Moderator
I was considering switching salts too.. But to hear these wipe out stories.... Im just going to stick to Reef Crystals.....
 

malulu

NJRC Member
Mike,

if you need corals let me know...( free for you )
my tank is dong OK, not a lots of corals...but enough for you to start over slowly...
:)
 
Very sorry to hear and I definetly can relate I too have been experienceing difficulties with my tank as well after tesing my water vigorously I came to the conclusion that the culprit was RSPC I contacted RSPC and informed them that the new bucket I had recently bought was. A bad batch my params read cal 300 mag 1200 and alk 16 while salinty was at :023. They ended up giving me a new bucket which I have in the closet not even bothered with opeing it up. Needless too say I have since switched salts and gone back. To tmp and hopeing to start seeing progress within the next couple of weeks gl with your situation
 

HerbieK

NJRC Honorary Member
NJRC Member
I have been blending salts now for the past few years. My usual blend lately has been 1/2 Red sea coral pro and Reef Crystals. Blending salts can prevent issues that may be salt related. If you have a bad batch, only 1/2 the salt added will have a problem and the other half most likely will not and will mitigate the issues to a large extent. I never had salt issues and maybe blending may be the key.

Just my 2 cents.

Herb
 
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