Caution: Instant Ocean salt problems!

[Ninong]

If you are using Instant Ocean salt mix, you might want to test the alkalinity of the freshly made up saltwater before using it just to be safe. A few hobbyists are reporting problems with extremely high alkalinity in I.O. salt. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...5&pagenumber=1

A few of them have sent I.O. salt mix samples to Dr. Randy Holmes-Farley for testing. Randy received the first such sample yesterday and posted the results today. He tested alkalinity at 95 dKH!!! That's not a typo.

[Reefland]

Hummm, do I smell a product Recall? Ok that would be asking for too much since product can be very diffiuclt to isolate and costs lots of money. Has anyone been in contact with IO and if so, what was their response?

With all of the salt talk lately, which can we really trust.

[Ninong]

Has anyone been in contact with IO and if so, what was their response?

I guess you didn't feel like reading the whole thread? ;)

Anyway, if you had actually read the entire thread you would have learned that the guy in Midland, Michigan, Thomas 712, has been in contact with Aquarium Systems.

Thomas712: "Called someone by the name of Gershwin at Aquarium Systems and was told to send a water sample in. Well they lost the first one. Sent a second sample in and had them sign for it this time. They signed for it on the 24th but still no word from them. Send a 2 pound sample somewhere else but they declined to give me any data, guess they didn't want to get sued."

Thomas is still waiting for a response from Aquarium Systems. He experienced his tank wipeout four weeks ago. He has now had samples from his Instant Ocean salt mix tested by two sources, Randy Holmes-Farley and another unnamed source. The test results that Randy reported seem to confirm the results measured by the unnamed source. Thomas sent them a two pound sample of the salt mix because he was getting nowhere with Aquarium Systems. They tested the sample he sent them but since they are in the same industry they decided it would not be appropriate for them to release the results.

The guy in Vancouver, B.C., Megalodon, has been letting his LFS handle things. They tested his salt mix and told him that the alkalinity was very high. They gave him a new bucket of Instant Ocean salt mix free of charge. That bucket tested fine. No one has offered to cover the loss of his animals yet. He mailed a sample of his I.O. salt mix to Randy Holmes-Farley for testing. It's coming from Canada, so it will take longer.

The guy in Houston, Texas, spham, tried to call Aquarium Systems yesterday, Friday, but he says they were closed. He said he will try to call them again Monday morning. This morning, Saturday, he went back to the LFS in Houston where he purchased the I.O. salt to complain. He requested that they test the alkalinity to see for themselves. They told him that they do have have any alkalinity test kits and that, besides, "Alkalinity is not important." I believe he will also be sending a sample to Randy for testing.

[zhenya]

They told him that they do have have any alkalinity test kits and that, besides, "Alkalinity is not important." I believe he will also be sending a sample to Randy for testing.

Don't you just love this?

Ninong,

I finish reading this thread a while ago and will be watching for updates on what the outcome with AS will be. I tend to agree with MiddletonMark that it is probably just a human error,however how it is handled as far as customer service goes is another matter. I sympatise with Thomas and Megalodon but can't overlook that ultimately it was their responsibility to check if the newly made water was safe to put in the tank. It is probably not a very comon practice but it should be,IMO.

[Ninong]

I agree with MiddletonMark completely. I don't want to sound critical of the three guys who are experiencing this unfortunate problem, but I hope that if my saltwater ever looked like what Randy Holmes-Farley described that I would be cautious enough to test it before using it. And I certainly wouldn't try to mix just a small amount of it with other buckets of Instant Ocean just so as not to "waste" it. We don't even know for sure what's in it. The high alkalinity is just the symptom. Randy hasn't even determined the cause yet. He's only guessing. Maybe he will do some more testing at work tomorrow.

Since not everyone is reading the entire thread, I want to point out that one of the three guys in question purchased a bag of Instant Ocean, the other two purchased buckets. And the three are spread across a very wide geographical area: Texas, Michigan and British Columbia.

I don't believe I have any Instant Ocean hidden away anywhere right now. I gave it all away. If I did have some, I would mix up a small batch and test it just out of curiosity. I was looking around to see if I could find some yesterday and all I found was a couple of buckets of Red Sea and several large bags of Reef Crystals. That's because Petopia had run out of buckets, so they filled the order with 50-gal bags. That was back when they were about to be taken over by Petco. They were practically giving the stuff away. I haven't used any of it since I decided to go with Crystal Sea Bioassay instead.

The purpose of this thread is to warn people to check their Instant Ocean before using it just to be safe!

[Minh Nguyen]

Don't you just love this?
....
I sympatise with Thomas and Megalodon but can't overlook that ultimately it was their responsibility to check if the newly made water was safe to put in the tank. It is probably not a very comon practice but it should be,IMO.

Gene,
I disagree with you here. There is no way we can check and see each time we mix water up and make sure that it is safe for our tank. What would we test? Hind sight is 20/20. I am sure if I did not read these thread, I would just find out about the bad salt just as these there unfortunate reefkeepers. Well. maybe not if the water was really, really cloudy). Certainly, I would not do the same thing as they did now that I know about this problem. There are so many un-testable chemicals that may be in the salt water that will kill our tank. The fault here is with Aquarium System. It just seems unlikely that these three people (Thomas, Megalodon, and Spham) from North America conspire to discredit AS. They must have a bad patch of salt. This can happen with any salt maker. I agree that how AS deal with this will tell lots about how they value their customer.
I use IO salt myself for 20+ years. The only time I got a different salt type was when I friend got a container for me when he visit me here in Corpus Christi, and I used NSW when I was in Seattle. I plan to continue to use IO, But if there is anything unusual about the new salt water as I mix it, I will make sure that I check the Alkalinity, and possibly test it out on my smaller 10 g tank before use it on my large aquarium.
minh

[Ninong]

Minh,

I'm sure what Gene was talking about, as was I, was the fact that according to Randy Holmes-Farley the freshly mixed I.O. saltwater turned as cloudy as skim milk within minutes after mixing. The point being that if your freshly mixed saltwater doesn't look like it usually does, that should set off alarm bells to check it out first before using it.

[Ninong]

Minh,

Gene's 'mad face' smilie and the comment, "Don't you just love this?" applied only to the response Spham got from his LFS in Houston: They told him they didn't have any alkalinity kits to test his salt mix and, besides, "Alkalinity is not important."

[Minh Nguyen]

Minh,

The mad face and the comment, "Don't you just love this?" applied only to the response Spham got from his LFS in Houston: They told him they didn't have any alkalinity kits to test his salt mix and, besides, "Alkalinity is not important."

I meant to deleted the "The mad face and the comment, 'Don't you just love this?'" but did not due to oversight.
I guess it all come down to how unusual the newly mix water is. If it is obvious then they should not added it to their tank. The degree of unusualness required for me to act is much lower now that I read these thread. That is for sure.
I also think that any salt mix may have problem similar to this. I would be extreemly mad if it kill one of my favorite pet that being with me for years.
Minh

[zhenya]

I meant to deleted the "The mad face and the comment, 'Don't you just love this?'" but did not due to oversight.
I guess it all come down to how unusual the newly mix water is. If it is obvious then they should not added it to their tank. The degree of unusualness required for me to act is much lower now that I read these thread. That is for sure.
I also think that any salt mix may have problem similar to this. I would be extreemly mad if it kill one of my favorite pet that being with me for years.
Minh

Minh,

I appologize for not making my post clearer. Like Ninong has stated it was only ment in response when I read the comment about an answer that was given at the LFS to Spham. That alone makes my blood boil. I agree with you that when you are set in the rutine of doing water changes not many people will check the water or run some tests on every backet of water that is made. However, I don't believe that legaly either one of the people involved stand a chance of getting any money for their livestock lost,simply for the reason that I have stated before. Like Nining have said,the water looked extremely different(cloudy) visually and that alone should have promted person to check WHY it was different.
On a personal note, I agree with you that any person would be exteremely angry and upset at the losses that this people have suffered. Clearly,the mistake had been made at the factory but this shouldn't take away from the responsibility of the hobbyist that is mixing the saltwater with the product.
I have to find one of my old IO backets and read the disclamer on it, be back later

[Ninong]

I believe most, if not all, states recognize an implied warranty of merchantability: The product is expected to perform the job it was intended to perform. All manufacturers try to disclaim consequential damages but some state laws prohibit this and allow claims for consequential damages regardless of the the manufacturer's stated warranty.

At the very least they are entitled to a replacement of the defective product or a full refund and in some states they can claim consequential damages -- the value of the livestock lost as a consequence of the defective product.

In major product liability cases you can find an attorney willing to sue regardless of the provisions of state law if the damages are high enough and the chances of success great enough. Even when damages are not all that great individually, you can sometimes find an attorney willing to fill for class action status if the number of victims makes the total damages high enough to warrant such action.

In this particular situation, assuming the number of victims does not grow much greater than the six who have already posted to Reef Central, if is very likely that Aquarium Systems will offer to reimburse them for their losses now that the matter has been made public on a reefkeeping buttetin board with 40,000 potential customers. Anything less would be a major public relations blunder on their part. Aquarium Systems has to move immediately to identify the problem and recall the defective product.

[Reefland]

I very seriously doubt that they will "recall" any of the product. Product recalls are very costly, definately place blame and shows negligence and often will ruin small businesses. This whole situation makes us ask what kind of quality testing is performed on each batch of salt that is packaged and distributed and what kind of sample retention program they have in place to prove that the batches are safe for the intended use.

[Ninong]

I very seriously doubt that they will "recall" any of the product. Product recalls are very costly, definately place blame and shows negligence and often will ruin small businesses. This whole situation makes us ask what kind of quality testing is performed on each batch of salt that is packaged and distributed and what kind of sample retention program they have in place to prove that the batches are safe for the intended use.

Scott,

It might be that there is only a limited amount of product out there that needs to be recalled. What if they determine that there are only a few hundred pounds of the stuff that are screwed up and they have a way to identify those buckets/bags? It would be much more difficult if they have no way of knowing which buckets/bags are potentially messed up and have to recall ALL outstanding product. That's what Tylenol was faced with when that lunatic put cyanide in a few capsules. Tylenol recalled all outstanding product and redesigned the product and the packaging before sending it back out again. It's considered the classic example of the right way to handle a Page Ranking disaster such as they faced at the time.

Instant Ocean is manufactured by Aquarium Systems which is a division of Marineland. Marineland's corporate image would suffer if they don't handle this situation properly in a customer supportive way. They make a lot of products besides salt mix.

There are now six customers posting that they have experienced tank dieoffs caused by Instant Ocean salt. At least three of those have mailed samples of the I.O. salt mix to Randy Holmes-Farley for testing and one of them had previously mailed two pounds of the stuff to a competitor of Aquarium Systems. The competitor has already tested it but doesn't want to say what their test revealed. They are sitting on their test results waiting to see if people like Randy will publish tests results and if those results match theirs. It just so happens that the sample that Randy tested and posted about on RC yesterday is from the same guy who send two pounds of the stuff to the competitor earlier.

This might all be an isolated incident of operator error in mixing the ingredients or something like that. If the amount of product that has to be recalled is not that large, then it's no big deal provided they get on top of it right away and acknowledge the problems and announce their intention to reimburse those people who suffered losses. If they ignore it or try to somehow blame the customers, they are making a big mistake.

[Dive_Master]

I am experiencing the same problem, Alkalinity off scale and cloudy water. I am calling them tomorrow to see what they will do. I think nothing, so switched to coralife after using IO for years.

[Minh Nguyen]

I am experiencing the same problem, Alkalinity off scale and cloudy water. I am calling them tomorrow to see what they will do. I think nothing, so switched to coralife after using IO for years.

I think, please don't tank my word on this, many people are reporting that they will remburse you for your dead lifestock if you can prove that you the bad salt. I would not just automatically assume that they will do nothing. Sofar, I think they have being very responsive.
Minh

[Poseidon]

WOw if thats true then IO actually deserves a pat on the back... Hopefully Dive Master noticed the problem B4 putting any new mix in, and did not lose anything... I think a new bucket/bag of salt plus a Supplement of his choice would be great if nothing was lost!!!

[kevinpo]

I had 3 - 200 Gal buckets of the bad stuff a few months a ago. They were all replace free of charge including shipping after a few calls and mailing in samples.
I noticed the water was cloudy (150 gals) and didn't put it in the tank. I dumped it and the RO/DI water used to make it down the drain.

Regards,
Kevin

[Ninong]

WOw if thats true then IO actually deserves a pat on the back...

Consider this:

• They have known about this problem for a few months now and yet it still keeps popping up all over the place.

• There is nothing on their website warning customers about this problem.

• It seems that they did nothing in the way of recalling their defective product from vendors.

Can you say coverup?

"...every batch is analyzed to assure consistent high quality." http://www.aquariumsystems.com/frames1.htm

[zhenya]

I think it's much easier for them to simply replace product to ones that did complained(shipping included) then to do the actual recall.It might very well be that the problem is not as small as it seems. ;)

[Poseidon]

Very true Ninong, I guess the BAD press from admitting fault is worse then protecting the loyal customer, to AS anyway.