I am posting this not to say Salifert FWE is a bad product but to warn anyone else that may be considering it's use to be extremely cautious
I HAD a very beautiful 200 gal softie and LPS tank last friday. I have suspicions as to where I got the flatworms but they are now out of biz so I won't go there.
Anyhow, I read and read and read before I used the product because I have a Sea Apple and I didn't want to piss him off.
I blew off the rocks and vac'd up FW's and blew and vac'd several times and then I thought I was safe.
I put in the FWE as directed and within 5 min the tank had turned very yellow. I started the carbon and a 25% water change. All of my corals closed up immeadiatly, the fish all went into hiding and the skimmer went crazy.
Things were not looking good. I ran to Walmart and bought another 50 gal of water and mixed up another batch real quick and as soon as the readings were OK I changed some more water. I drained 75 gal but replaced 50 so I would have a better concentration of clean water.
I spent ALL day Sunday moving rocks and corals and cleaning. changed out another 50 gal and this morning I am left with One Sea Apple, a small blue with yellow tail damsal and I saw my mandarin goby at some point while cleaning. All the other fish are history Purple Tang, Light Blue Tang, Pajama's, Lawnmower Blenny,
Scooter Blenny, Cleaner shrimp, 10
Peppermint shrimp, I even saw bristle worms writhing and die. Not one of my corals has come out of it yet, frogspawns, cup coral, candy canes, Zoos all gone.
I am certainly happy that my favorite animal the Sea Apple seems to have come through this but I am so saddened by this I am considering calling it quits. This is my first real loss in the 8 years I have been tending to my ocean and it hurts real bad.
The moral of the story is if you have FW's and are thinking of FWE. put all of your fish and inverts in a hospital tank. Maybe do a separate dip of your corals. and PRAY.
I hope that in some way my loss will help someone else in this situation. FWE is NOT as safe as the box would have you believe.