cloudy fresh salt water

koolaid

koolaid

Member
I was going to change 3 gallons of water when I noticed the salt water I was going to use was cloudy. I made the RODI water 4 days ago. I let it aerate for 24 hours with a airstone and powerhead. I added IO salt and let aerate for another 24 hours. Checked with refractometer and added a little more salt and let it aerate for another 24 hours. I ran all the checks: sal 1.024 ph 8.2 cal 340 and dkh 11.8 alk 4.23. I added the two part Bionic. Today I checked the cal again and it was at 400. I did not do the water change. I am waiting on your response. I use a 10gal rubbermaid container to store the water. I dont believe anything was dumpded into the container, but anything is possible. Should I dump and start over? I do two 5% water changes weekly. I use salifert test kits.
 
koolaid

koolaid

Member
BTW I forgot the important part. The dkh would not register with the salifert test kit. It is higher than 16.
 
leigh

leigh

Active Member
my guesses:
a) calcium test kit gone bad and ca levels higher than you think or some other ca/alk imbalance
b) something live-ish (or detrius or something) found it's way into the rubbermaid and is caused an ammonia spike/algae bloom
*edit* just saw your btw, and that makes me guess (a) more strongly. can you detect any calcium precip?
 
me-n-my-fish

me-n-my-fish

Member
do a search for Thomas712. He just had a HUGE problem with IO salts. I see if i can find the thread and bump it.
Oh, calcium Precip would be a white substance at the bottom of your container, i think....
 
bonermeister

bonermeister

Member
If your alk is off the charts you might have gotten a bad batch of IO like Thomas did. Run a search on Thomas712 and see if you can find his post. It was fairly recent; within the last two weeks. Don't use it until you're sure it is safe.
 
koolaid

koolaid

Member
Hey aaron :p
I just poured out the water and I did some a white substance at the bottom of the container. It looked like a powder substance. I cleaned the container out and started the RODI.
Another question, Should I not of added the calcium to the IO water?
 
T

thomas712

Guest
There is no real reason to add anthing to your make up water, so no do not add buffer or calcium to your water change. Normally your water change is much less than your total volume of water, adding the buffer or calcium could throw your water change out of whack, things would be much less drastic in the larger amount of water.
Where did you buy your IO salt from?
Instead of doing a search on my name do one on Instant Ocean or IO salt, then you will find my threads about it. I lost all of my clean up crew and a 6 line wrasse, almost the corals as well.
My thoughts are not to use this salt mix, also take a sample of the salt mix down to your LFS and have them double check it.
Thomas
 
T

thomas712

Guest
I had to go out an purchase a salt from Marine Enterprise, It was all my LFS had at the time so that I could do an Emergancy water change. IO is aware of the problems that have cropped up and are fixing it.
Best advice is simply to test the first batch out of any new container, if it is clear and checks out then go for it.
Thomas
 
lesleybird

lesleybird

Active Member

Originally posted by Thomas712
There is no real reason to add anthing to your make up water, so no do not add buffer or calcium to your water change. Normally your water change is much less than your total volume of water, adding the buffer or calcium could throw your water change out of whack, things would be much less drastic in the larger amount of water.
Where did you buy your IO salt from?
Instead of doing a search on my name do one on Instant Ocean or IO salt, then you will find my threads about it. I lost all of my clean up crew and a 6 line wrasse, almost the corals as well.
My thoughts are not to use this salt mix, also take a sample of the salt mix down to your LFS and have them double check it.
Thomas
Thomas, Did a search and can't find your post about Instant Ocean salt. I am concerned as I am filling up my new 90 gallon this week with some pre-mixed R/O salt water from my LFS and it has a whole lot of white salt or something settling to the bottom which I can see as there is no substrate there yet. Is this a sign of a problem? It also looks like it is floating in the water and not mixing into the water. I wiped the new tank out with a wet paper towel before I started to fill it. I am not sure what type of salt that they used. Did Instant ocean poision your livestock? In what way....can't find your old post. Lesley
 
T

thomas712

Guest
Well now isn't that bizarre, I just tried to do a search on Instant Ocean and with the exception of this thread drew a blank. Seems the search function isn't working correctly. Halloween gremlins must be at work.
Thread to start out with is:
"What kind of salt do you use" This is where I first start to talk about what happend with my water change. 9/8/03
"Instant Ocean- Still a dead end"
"IO answers and results" 10/6/03
You may have to look up all my threads which is why I added the dates. Or if you prefer I can just bump them.
Thomas
3333
 
madd catt

madd catt

Member
It seems this bad batch of io has caused a stir in other forums as well and in one case has caused the mods too lock it.
Reefers are now waiting on the inland reef independent salt report to find out how the salts fair.
 
kelldog4

kelldog4

Member
I have had a similar problem with Cloudy IO water. I have sent a sample in to Aquarium Systems (IO headquarters) to be tested.
 
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