A lot of major issues happening with this salt. Switch now before it happens to your tank and corals.
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TMP Salt- Stop using it immediately. (1 Viewer)
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$5 says you can’t be more vague 
OP
OP
How’s this for vague. There’s many more just like it.$5 says you can’t be more vague
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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
soymilk
Supporting Member
Oof. I have a bucket sitting next to my desk
how do you know if you have the German stuff or the turkey stuff?
how do you know if you have the German stuff or the turkey stuff?
OP
OP
Mix it up…let’s find out!
Curious if any MARSHians who use TMP Reef Salt have had any issues as described in Post #3. Especially with buckets with plastic handles. Very curious. I have a bucket that I'm finishing up with a metal handle but the replacement bucket does indeed have a plastic handle but I have mixed any of it up yet.
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No issues for me whatsoever. I have 3 separate tanks that house 3 different kinds of high end nems. High end nems are finicky and will tell you if there’s something wrong, unlike regular bta’s. One tank has 13 supernovas, another 70ish Chicago’s, and another 13 huge csb’s. They are all healthy and have been growing and now take over the entire tank to the point where I am having to sell off all of my livestock. But I am not a resident physician, or a leader in any facet of reefing, and don’t have sps so….. yea.
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soymilk
Supporting Member
ive been outta reefing for a while, but i've never even heard of chumminghams reef.
oguzman
Supporting Member
"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. "
Is this guy serious? It's hobby grade salt ...
"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."
Man ... I thought some of our crew members and flight directors had big egos...
If it matters, when I water change (2-3 times a year if I'm lucky) I usually use the red sea salt. I've also used the fritz salt as well when OLA or Dennis had it on special. I've lost corals before, the most recent really blew. It was a 3 year old colony of the WD acro (I love that acro). It's likely from an alk swing or some type of negligence on my part. Or maybe acros are just hard to keep and sometimes they just die. To the article above, he hasn't provided any data or removed out all the variables in the system. This is at BEST anecdotal evidence, TBH it looks more like a look how amazing I am.
On a related note, where are the instant ocean people?? I bet they're going to get a kick out of this in terms of price point.
Is this guy serious? It's hobby grade salt ...
"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."
Man ... I thought some of our crew members and flight directors had big egos...
If it matters, when I water change (2-3 times a year if I'm lucky) I usually use the red sea salt. I've also used the fritz salt as well when OLA or Dennis had it on special. I've lost corals before, the most recent really blew. It was a 3 year old colony of the WD acro (I love that acro). It's likely from an alk swing or some type of negligence on my part. Or maybe acros are just hard to keep and sometimes they just die. To the article above, he hasn't provided any data or removed out all the variables in the system. This is at BEST anecdotal evidence, TBH it looks more like a look how amazing I am.
On a related note, where are the instant ocean people?? I bet they're going to get a kick out of this in terms of price point.
guylaga
Supporting Member
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.
www.reef2reef.com
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
I guess what I don't understand is what exactly is in the salt (or not in the salt) that is causing the issues? Did anyone affected by the problem send a water sample for independent analysis? I feel like if the problem can be reversed by a simple 10% water change, there must be something missing from the mix (rather than, say, an unknown toxin -- which would not be flushed out of the system with a small water change) that should easily be identified by a water analysis.
Not saying that this isn't a real problem, but it's surpsrising that someone who has a scientific background (like a doctor!) didn't say, "My corals were responding poorly to TMP salt. I sent samples of freshly mixed saltwater for ICP analysis and found it was dangerously low in XX."
Not saying that this isn't a real problem, but it's surpsrising that someone who has a scientific background (like a doctor!) didn't say, "My corals were responding poorly to TMP salt. I sent samples of freshly mixed saltwater for ICP analysis and found it was dangerously low in XX."
I have one of the "original" buckets. Thankfully Im a ways off from needing another one. I wont make any knee jerk decisions based on one persons experience, but I will follow along and see how it unfolds over the next month or so and do my due diligence with looking into things. My system is happy as is, not in a rush to make any big changes. Thanks for the info @Reefaholic
soymilk
Supporting Member
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
I’ll crack my bucket next month and I’ll check for myself
Turkey has the plastic handle...not metal.
I can concur with this....I've lost about 6k in sps
OP
OP
I use good ol’ regular IO. The great and almighty TMP is just too much for my wallet to bare.
OP
OP
Welcome to the world of most medical doctors. If you want them to do anything in the hospital, just suggest the complete opposite. Works every time!
I have a lot of Dr. Friends…and I get it…they took the MCAT, got into medical school, went through several years of training, residency, specialty, yada…yada….yada….but, this dose not necessarily make you smart. There are plenty of dumb doctors running around, and loads of new (wet behind the ears) doctors that don’t know sh:t. Trust me on that one.
They’ll try very hard to baffle you with bs if you let them. The first quote says it all.
However, there’s no question that TMP has had MAJOR issues and some say that after March 2021 is the danger zone.
I think the smart thing to do especially during times like COVID were fish and coral prices are high is to switch salts temporarily until they perform a complete toxicology test and see what the pollutant actually is and where it came from. If I know Lou and Tropic Marin they are working on it hard right now and will get to the bottom of it. If they were smart they would have recalled all the salt especially after Feb 2021.
OP
OP
See my quote above at the end.
OP
OP
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.
