Would you blame the salt?

[Candi]

Without boring you with to many details....

I run three reef tanks, a 24g aquapod (over yr old) which I've used tropic marin in since day one, never had a cyno issue or really any algae after my very small intital diatom bloom. I do a 5g a week water change

A 30g extremely lightly stocked oceanic cube (one juvi marine green spotted puffer & one damsel) which has been running about 6 months, I've only ever used IO or RC in it, fighting diatoms now and then (puffer likes to eat cleaning crew) but for about the past month batteling cyno BIG TIME. Lots of flow, light feeding (damsel gets a couple pellets a day, puffer eats some mysis or ramshorn snails), brand new PC bulbs and it just keeps getting worse. 5g water change about every 10 days (tank has skimmer unlike my nano)

A 70g oceanic RR with approx 15g sump, also new PC lighting... marco rocks seeded with LR from the 50g this upgraded. Only about 3 1/2 months old but started batteling major cyno about the same time as the 30g cube. 20g water change about every 10days (also has skimmer)

At first I figured it was a coincidence since they are both newer tanks, even though I have a ton of flow in my 70g and feed lightly as well.... then I realized I only use the IO on these 2 tanks and all this seems to have started around the time I got my most recent bucket of salt.

I'm assuming most would toss the salt and get a new bucket and see if anything changes, but I'm cheap and I haven't done that yet LOL would you start there, assuming it is likely a bad bucket of salt, since I follow almost the same feeding/wc schedule as my nano with the major difference being IO vs tropic marin. Same RODI water, same buckets/powerheads etc used for wc's

[barbra]

Have you tested the freshly made water for acceptable parameters?

It seems unlikely that the salt would be a bad bucket and causing the trouble, there are so many variables involved that there is no reason to single that one out yet. Test it and then it may help you narrow down a source.

[dendro982]

I used Tropic Marin after IO, visually tank become better, more coraline growth, no problems (aside the TM proce )

But IO was a not good batch - alkalinity by Salifert kit 15+ dKH, low Mg and Ca.

Now (the cheap me!) using Read Sea because of price, but not IO (other batches are not available in the city).

But: I had both - red cyano and dinoflagellates during use of the same salt, without changes. Could be a separate from salt problem.

[wayne in norway]

I use exactly the same water on my main tank and my nano, and one had cyno, and one didn't. I even swap water between the two routinely because it's a super easy way to control the parameters of the nano.. So, no, I doubt it's the salt.