Oceanic is making salt now!

[fidojoe]

The only problem is that I can't get it locally, like I can get IO and marinemix pro, and deep ocean.

[Craig Manoukian]

If you order on-line they ship direct to your door.

[wds21921]

I'm glad to see at least some people are having good luck with Oceanic Salt. My experience has been less than favorable at this point.

To start, I've got over 20 years experience in raising and keeping saltwater fish and inverts. I've worked for 3 different stores and helped them to create what became succesful saltwater businesses. I am not an expert, just someone who has listened to good advice and enjoyed the hobby aspect for many years.

My experience with Oceanic started off as a hopeful way to eliminate having to kalk dose my tank. After doing a 10% water change to a once thriving reef tank, quickly turned into a complete disaster. The pH plummetted from a regular 8.4 to just below 7.8 within hours. Within 30 - 45 mins my soft corals were closing up, 2 hours later snails were dropping off the glass, 24 hours later 2 dead emerald crabs. 48 hours later 12-15 dead xenias, a dead yellow tang and a dead pink damsel.
This all happened while I was also trying to do emergency water changes to get the pH stabilized after I'd found out what had happened. Every test across the board was fine except the ph and later, the salinity.
In the meantime I had also contacted several people and a few other friends who were also reefers. Most had a lot of good things to say about Oceanic but the few who didn't, all had smilar problems and similar results.
The apparent problem is the worst one you can possibly have for salt. That is, inconsistancy between batches. Oceanic Systems has admitted to this being a problem in the past. The consumers problem is, you have no way of knowing how much of it is still out there, and trust me it is!

The two most likely culprits in my estimation would have been the tank itself or the "source" water which were both tested 4-6x's to guarantee the test results. The only place that appeared to be a problem was the Oceanic mix itself. Both the pH and the salinity were completely out of whack. What was recommended as a dosage (1/2 cup per gallon) only produced a result of a 1.015 salinity, meanwhile the pH refused to go above 6.8 - 7.0 no matter how much more salt was added to raise the salinity level.
The 'source' water was excluded early on, after many tests. The Oceanic batch mix was slowly raised to 78 F and circulated for 4-5 hours using a powerhead. The same thing I've done for 22 years now.
While I cannot and will not say that Oceanic Systems makes bad salt, I can say with certainty they do have a very serious quality control problem which results in a batch to batch problem.
Considering what it's costed me as far as almost completely wiping out my tank as well as the monetary consideration and time, I am going back to IO myself.
The little effort it takes to dose my own kalk and have a halfway decent quailty of life for my animals is well worth it having now gone through this.
I'll make the extra effort rather than play russian roulette and not know when and if I got a 'bad batch' or not.

If anyones interested e-mail and I can send you the test results including time line, test kits used, etc. All the equipment used to perform testing was independent of my own equipment so as to provide untainted test results.

[Birdlady]

Would "ionic imbalance" contribute to this type of problem? I have heard that switching from one brand to another can cause ionic imbalance in a tank and sends all sorts of things out of whack (I understand this is not entirely the case here as you tested water not from your tank as well)
I am sortof a rookie and am just trying to gather info....haven't chosen a salt brand yet....

[Craig Manoukian]

Marine Environment 2 Part salt here. No thanks to any other salt!

[wds21921]

Ionic balance could be a consideration but because of the results of the tested "mix" water before it was introduced into the tank showed such poor results, it would negate the effect to the inhabitants since it was independent of the tanks water.
The main indicating 'bad' results were the pH at 6.8 - 7.0 and the salinity which did not even appear until the temp was raised above the tank temp. This was afer 5 hours of constant mixing by a powerhead in a very clean container used exclusively for water changes only. I used a swing arm hydrometer (variance considered +/-.007) and a laboratory floating hydrometer to insure the test results. The first thing to question is the temp, because of the mixing period of the new water. The temp was raised using a tank heater to within 1-2 degrees of the tanks temp, with still no results in the salinity using the mfg's prescribed recommendations.

[wds21921]

Note: Even after adding more than double the amount of salt recommended by Oceanic Systems the pH did not get above 6.8-7.0 area. The salinity did however increase to 1.026.
On my end I have to conclude that a dual shock of very fast lowering pH as well as most likely unstable buffering system in the Oceanic mix caused the demise of my entire system.

[dx7fd2]

First of all, I am truly sorry for the loss of the tank regardless of the cause.

I just started my sump/refugium up with Oceanic Salt used as directed. It has been running for 3 days the SG is 1.022, the ph is 8.2 and the temp is 78.5 F. I have not run other tests as the tank is new and all I have in it is 2 pieces (count 'em 2) of Live Rock form the LFS. So far so good!! I am actually getting miniscule ammonia readings, which means something is going on!!

Will keep you posted!!

Drew

[wds21921]

Thanks dx keep us posted as I will be interested to see the results.

[wds21921]

The tank has stabilized after having changed out almost 20 gallons of water. No changes in the corals (they still look bad), fish are doing ok, Coraline and hard green alge are turning white, Calurpa has broken down into nothing more than fibrious strands.
I guess I'm starting over but this time NO OCEANIC SALT!!