Reef Crystals salt mix

I've been using reefCrystals for over 2 yrs now. I usually buy whatever is on sale, box or bucket. The last batch I used was a 5g bucket, I recently picked up a box, the LFS had them on sale for $49. Did my first water change from this batch of salt last Friday, a few days later I noticed some strange stringy (3-4 inches long), clear algae growing on my glass and some rocks, lots of bubbles at the base of the algae. It's not GHA, usually my tank is free of algae (with the exception of macro). I'll run some tests tomorrow, just wanted to see if anyone else experience anything similar with ReefCrystals.

 

map95003

I have been reading around a few sites recently about salt mixes with excess protiens in them, creating an ammonia reading in the mixing bucket

1 person went to the trouble of testing a new mix with a different salt in same bucket
and found 0 ammonia- this experiment eliminated the RODI and the Bucket as the source of the issue

that person went on to make another mix and once again after 24 hours in the mixing bucket a slight ammonia reading was found

its possible that the algae spores where in your set up, and your recent water change may have been from a dodgy batch of salt and has fueled this algae and sparked it into life

do a test on your next mix, and see what results you get

Steve

 

Good advice, Steve.

Could it be said that this is specifically from this brand of salt, or is it just as likely to happen from any other band? Is it just a random mistake that could be made?

 

absolutely Seano
its possibly just coincedental that I found said material about a rogue batch of salt of this brand in the same week Map finds he has an algae outbreak
but its always a good idea to test your new saltwater anyway
because contamination could arise and you dont want to be blindly accepting that the water you are going to add to your tank is in fact better than the water you are removing?

Steve