TMP Salt- Stop using it immediately. (2 Viewers)

soymilk said:

I feel like if it was wide spread, brs woulda pulled it off it’s webstore.

I’ll crack my bucket next month and I’ll check for myself

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Erin said:

There are a couple threads on R2R about this topic... one is linked below

TL;DR take, a small number of issues have been reported to TM and, while most cannot be reproduced when salt samples are sent in to them, they are committed to investigating the problem. Definitely seems like a rare occurrence in a few batches of salt.

Calling On Tropic Marine For Help!!!

Hoping someone from Tropic Marine can help your loyal customers!!! Big fan of your products, including All For Reef. A number of your customers (including me) have recently experienced your TM Pro Reef Saltwater mix NOT mixing clean like it used to. Now everyone is aware of the Supply...

www.reef2reef.com

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Reefahholic said:

Just trying to keep some of you guys from a tank crash.

No doubt there’s been some major issues, but I like Tropic Marin and Lou. However, at this point if you have TMP salt…it would be a good time to seal it up, sit on it, and wait. Switching to another brand like Red Sea Blue bucket or Instant Ocean temporarily would be a smart move. Not trying to get anybody to switch salts, but at least make a move until they get a full toxicology test done. They will and the source will be found. I’m very interested to know exactly what it is myself and what level of toxicity it was at. It may not be an outside pollutant. Could be a high iodine level! We’ll have to wait and see and I have several people that will be updating me and of course I’ll update here.

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Reefahholic said:

Are you sure??! If you knew what I know about that company you may think otherwise. Trust me…everything and everyone is heavily influenced by $$$

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BigRick said:

I can concur with this....I've lost about 6k in sps

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soymilk said:

I feel like if it was wide spread, brs woulda pulled it off it’s webstore.

I’ll crack my bucket next month and I’ll check for myself

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Reefahholic said:

How’s this for vague. There’s many more just like it.

———————————————————-
Hello,

My name is Dr. Ryan Cunningham the owner and operator of Chumminghams Reef. I am a resident physician who depends greatly on my aquaculture production for the payments of my bills. I am the best aquaculturist in the Midwest and leader in the hobby as far as aquaculturing previously impossible corals like acanthophyllia, scolymia, Trachyphyllia etc for reproduction. That is kind of what I am known for but the biggest part of my collection is made up of SPS. As I am sure you are aware I have been discussing my issues with Lou Ekus who has made a great deal of effort to help me identify the source of my issue starting in August of 2021. I have been a 7 year supporter of tropic Marin. There was a period of time where I would force my service clients to use TM pro as a prerequisite to even ask me questions about issues they were having in their reef. In 2016 I made a big push to transition all people in the Midwest to TM pro as the only salt to be used if you are a serious reefer. I have been in the hobby since 2011 and I have never had a crash throughout this entire time. My reef is not just my livelihood it is my life, I love it and I love all the animals contained within it. I have put blood, sweat, tears and immeasurable time and money into my collection.

Starting in July of 2021 I purchased 4 new buckets of TM pro following a long drought of not having this salt available to me. These buckets were new looking and unbenounced to me were being produced in a new facility in Turkey. Shortly thereafter all of my SPS started to lose color and lose polyp extension. Then they all started to RTN. At this time I was working in the ICU as a first year resident coming home to a disaster in my reef of unknown etiology. I couldn’t believe it but I was losing corals at a rapid rate for the first time in the hobby. I worked up the issue for 6 weeks never blaming the salt. I went through the tank with a fine tooth comb with the brief period of free time I had while working 80 hour weeks at the hospital. The experience was traumatic and extremely scary as this created undue pressure on me financially and emotionally. It took me until mid august of 2021 of working up everything from magnets, to fans to hair products I was using. Finally one day when I was doing a water change I remembered back to the old bucket of tropic I had been using for six years and was like “why did they change the handle from metal to plastic?”. It was at this point that I realized the period of time I was having issues completely overlapped with the time in which I transitioned to the new salt production. I was still skeptical as I used to roll my eyes when people blamed the salt mix as a bad batch. Regardless I ordered a new salt, HW reefer. The salt came three days later. I did a 10 percent water change daily on a 500 gallon system and I kid you not, it only took ten percent change with HW reefer for me to see polyp extension on my sps for the first time in six weeks. As I continued to do water changes with this new salt I continued to see improvement and color returned in 3-4 weeks. It was shocking. I made a post in august on BRS and had multiple people start pm me about the exact same issue they had. People in my local area who bought salt from the same pallet and vender as I noticed the same issue as well. The minute they switched salts their issues subsided.

Prior I was blaming poisoning but was unable to determine a source after looking at every single magnet and piece of equipment in my tank. As I did water changes with the tropic, the problem accelerated which I still didn’t blame the salt thinking that the water changes were just tipping the corals into rtn from the micro elemental changes from the WC. Thirty minutes after doing the first water change with HW I saw sps that were actively rtning stop rtn immediately and polyp extension return. I made Lou aware of this and he said your tests were coming back clean. I made it evident that there was no way your facility could be testing for every last contaminant that could be present in the environment. When I sent out an Icp the test came back off the charts for manganese and iron. Lou disregarded this finding as nothing new.

It is now approximately 6 months later from my initial insult and my tank is back to health. I lost half of my sps which I value at 40-60k just in sheer value and not counting my time spent to get there or lost profits from the future as I am no longer and to frag mothers anymore. It also eliminated all of my clams from the system of which there were 9 200 dollar maximas and a 30 year old aquacultured derasa clam which was grown in a tank from 2 inch to one that would occupy a 40 breeder. It is now dead and the next opportunity I will have to own a specimen of that caliber I will be 65 years old, I am 35 now. To say that this was the most stressful and financially difficult time of my life is a complete and utter understatement. I had to borrow money to pay my mortgage and buy food as residency pays me next to nothing. We are now 6 plus months into this thing and it is literally filling my Facebook feed daily. People posting videos of using TM pro to salt their driveway, Shane backer making a massive thread on it on R2R and finally another leader in our hobby Andre Mueler making this post I have attached to this email to you today recommending everyone stop using TM PRO IMMEDIATELY.

I warned you guys months ago that you had issues that you needed to look into and you disregarded me. Now I am here to say that not only do you personally owe me an apology you are also financially responsible for my losses. The debate is officially over. Your issues are all over the internet and your sales will no doubt tank. Tropic Marin needs to pull itself up by its boot straps and recall all salt that has been shipped to the United States since July 2021 or be faced with a class action lawsuit. You are literally killing animals across the country at this moment and charging us 120 bucks a bucket to do it. This is gross negligence. Lou had already refunded me 440 dollars for my salt that killed my tank and now I’m coming for my losses. Please do not tell me you are still testing and coming back clean. You have the literal leaders of aquaculture in the hobby all telling you that your salt is contaminated and the discussion is over. I want an apology and to be made financially whole followed shortly thereafter by a recall to have all TM PRO be recalled so the death and destruction across this hobby can end.

Sincerely,

Ryan Cunningham MD MBS
Owner and operator of Chumminghams Reef

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Reefahholic said:

Also, smell the salt…one girl was saying one bucket smells fine and yet the other smells like cat urine.

I bet something in a warehouse was leaking into the salt. I have a feeling this is an outside pollutant. Maybe a chemical of some sort.

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soymilk said:

can you elaborate a bit more about your experience with tmp? I'm not trying to shill for tmp, just wanna hear first account experiences with local people.

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mittens said:

It’s $105 for repeat delivery with free shipping from petco. All of mine were metal handles from Germany

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BigRick said:

Live aquaria owned

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soymilk said:

im not saying brs is the bastion of honesty but it qualifies for free shipping. Having to refund everyone their money and eat shipping costs while trying to get reimbursed from tropic marin isn't good business.

if you have some dirt on brs, i'd love to hear it.

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BigRick said:

I went through the exact process as written. My friend long (phenom) kept telling me to switch to TPM. I bought two buckets as soon as they became available from BRS. When he told me they were in stock they were out by the time I got to the site. So I had them email me when they got more in which was like 3 or 4 days later. Funny thing now that I think about he couldn't keep his sps alive and burned a lot of money and was testing and asking everyone if anyone knew anything. Not thinking about it a few months later after I ran out of my 55 gallon drum of salinity I opened the tpm to use. From since then I kept getting STN. I thought it might have been an alk spike or low phosphates but nothing jumped to quick or out of range where they couldn't or should have recovered and they never did. Now 3 months later pretty much all sps roasted and toasted. After an ICP test, it came back with same results. I thought my 7 hydra26s were bleaching my sps but the top of the tank was only 380 with a low 200. Phospahates .025 nitrates 12... ughh. My other tanks with LPS softies and anenomes were unaffected.

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