grimlock3000
Aquarium Advice Addict
First up, long time no see! Over the last couple months, I have been super busy because my wife had our first baby! I will be posting on a regular basis again now 
I started my tank off with Tropic Marin salt because I was told it was "the best". It went great for the first weeks, but there were a couple times I went to buy salt and could not find it. I switched to IO simply because I can get it anywhere. Since then, I have been flip flopping between the two salts, getting TM when I can find it, and IO other times. I always buy the boxes to make 10g of water since it gives me more excuses to check out the LFS with the wife
Recently, i found a new LFS that promised me they would always have TM salt, since that is basically all they carry. I bought a large box of the new TM Pro Reef salt, supposed to be better than the standard TM salt.
So, I get home and mix up a 12g batch of water with the new TM Pro Reef salt and do a water change the next day. I mix my saltwater in a 18g bin Rubbermaid tote btw. After two weeks of weekly water changes, I notice that my tank is having an algae problem which did not make any sense since I was feeding less and did not change anything. I add another powerhead, algae clears up for a few days, then comes back twice as bad. During this time, the bucket I mix salt in seems to have a lot of particulate on the bottom...
After that, I mix up more saltwater because the algae in my tank is getting worse. Another couple water changes, and the particulate stuff on at the bottom of the bucket was looking nasty. I reached in and it was like a film that actually had some thickness and I could get chunks out of it! I hypothesize that something contaminated my closed mixing bucket, which then contaminated the tank and caused the algae, I dump out all the water, cleaned everything that touches the Rubbermaid tote three times, and mix up more salt in a new clean tote.
After not too long, the new mix of saltwater is getting junked up just like that last batch. Meanwhile, my tank is looking horrendous and doing water changes just makes it worse. I am feeding half as much as I used to, have the same fish, have probably done 25 water changes, lights on less, even added more scavenger snails. Then it hits me, the salt might be bad! Everything points to the salt. I have heard of this in the past, but never suspected it would be an issue especially with TM's new (expensive) Pro Reef salt
So, with some hesitation, last night night I bought a 10g box of IO salt. I bet my algae problem starts clearing up for good once I get in some water changes with the IO.
I started my tank off with Tropic Marin salt because I was told it was "the best". It went great for the first weeks, but there were a couple times I went to buy salt and could not find it. I switched to IO simply because I can get it anywhere. Since then, I have been flip flopping between the two salts, getting TM when I can find it, and IO other times. I always buy the boxes to make 10g of water since it gives me more excuses to check out the LFS with the wife
Recently, i found a new LFS that promised me they would always have TM salt, since that is basically all they carry. I bought a large box of the new TM Pro Reef salt, supposed to be better than the standard TM salt.
So, I get home and mix up a 12g batch of water with the new TM Pro Reef salt and do a water change the next day. I mix my saltwater in a 18g bin Rubbermaid tote btw. After two weeks of weekly water changes, I notice that my tank is having an algae problem which did not make any sense since I was feeding less and did not change anything. I add another powerhead, algae clears up for a few days, then comes back twice as bad. During this time, the bucket I mix salt in seems to have a lot of particulate on the bottom...
After that, I mix up more saltwater because the algae in my tank is getting worse. Another couple water changes, and the particulate stuff on at the bottom of the bucket was looking nasty. I reached in and it was like a film that actually had some thickness and I could get chunks out of it! I hypothesize that something contaminated my closed mixing bucket, which then contaminated the tank and caused the algae, I dump out all the water, cleaned everything that touches the Rubbermaid tote three times, and mix up more salt in a new clean tote.
After not too long, the new mix of saltwater is getting junked up just like that last batch. Meanwhile, my tank is looking horrendous and doing water changes just makes it worse. I am feeding half as much as I used to, have the same fish, have probably done 25 water changes, lights on less, even added more scavenger snails. Then it hits me, the salt might be bad! Everything points to the salt. I have heard of this in the past, but never suspected it would be an issue especially with TM's new (expensive) Pro Reef salt
So, with some hesitation, last night night I bought a 10g box of IO salt. I bet my algae problem starts clearing up for good once I get in some water changes with the IO.
