I'm not ready to draw conclusive evidence, but I did receive new magnets from Hydor (thanks!) but they appear to be the 'gun metal grey' ones - so I'm curious if I'll have this problem again down the road. If there is anything foreign in the system, it'll take a few water changes to dilute it to the point where I can say "things look a lot better" or "things look the same"

Today, however, as I peek over at the system ... things look pretty good ... other than this cyano issue I'm fighting with.

Jason

My K-nano magnet is rusted too. Pretty sweet that I use that pump to mix water for both of my systems. No ill effects to this point but I ditched the magnet anyways (obviously). I am actually throwing that pump in my frag tank. Once you remove the magnet the suction cup actually works really well, go fig. Good insight. I may call and get some free magnets just for the F of it. I bet they have been getting hit the past few weeks for magnets.

That^ was my response too.

This is another good one: "No ill effects to this point but I ditched the magnet anyways (obviously)"



Exactly, no one else knows your age.

I know my age, does that count?

Should I risk leaving a magnet with rust in the tank? Uhh... doubt it. Even though there are no ill effects to this point I obviously removed the magnet before it got to that point ( I would think that would be obvious)

Why wouldn't I get some free replacement magnets. I paid for their product and I expect them to replace anything faulty or potentially damaging to my system. Who is to say that I may not attach the magnet and use the pump as intended down the road. If one or two people get new magnets this may not be a problem that is addressed. If there is an outcry from a large number of people then they will see that their product needs some changes in order to maintain the demand and popularity. Seems like pretty sound logic, but I may be wrong...

Clearly

I hear you Fosi. That's the problem. It's not like it is practical for us to test for the potential items that could leach. I don't think there is anything that we would actually be able to measure, presuming we are able to ascertain the composition of the magnet to know what to test for in the first place. I am sure my LFS doesn't sell test sets for cobalt, gadolinium or nickel! About the best we could hope to do without professional assay tests would be to set up maybe three tanks and match environmental conditions. I would have the test tank, control tank and a placebo tank with identical corals in each. Ideally these would be the same number of polyps fragged from the same parent colony and mounted to the same substrate. They would have to be in the same amount of flow, same temp, same distance from the same type of light. Since we will probably agree that testing the water for toxins would be beyond our resources, test data would have to be purely observational as best as I could figure. Growth rates, polyp extension, coloration, frequency of voiding, etc. That would be the simple version . It could actually be made quite complicated.



Bonsai,
Keep us posted please. It will be interesting to see how your tank does over the next couple of weeks.

I find it odd you got the grey magnets. I was assurred those were the older magnets and have been replaced with a black coated magnet.

I received magnets from the Hydor rep today. Since he wanted my old ones to send back to Italy for analysis I agreed to a new set. They are the black coated ones. The Rep was also kind enough to throw in three sets of the older style magnets because I wanted to play around with coming up with a way to re-coat them for those interested. I guess with Hydor passing magnets out for free that no one will be willing to take the time and just fix them. I still intend to play around with them and will post a way to easily re-coat them later this week for anyone that may be interested.

I have been greatly impressed with Hydors customer service and I hope that their generosity is not taken advantage of.

-Prof

Wow-I just came across this thread and use two k-nanos in my display. No problems for 6+months and everything is growing just fine.

My magnets look like the ones in the first picture without the bubbles but they do have the squigly lines on the silver side of them. I will keep a watch on them and see.

Yes, but do you know your own weight? It crushed me to learn that you aren't the dude in your avatar. I don't take any of your "science" seriously anymore.

P.S. Hydor sent me new magnets. Thanks, Hydor.

Found this thread being linked from another local forum...

The one question I have is where any of the water parameters ever measured during this time period where you noticed corals not growing/dying? If so, were any of them "out of whack"?

I ask because I am having a similar problem, although my tank is newer. My corals were doing well, very bright, open and doing well. Then somewhat suddenly, my corals closed up. My water parameters have been tested several times and everything is well within the required levels.

I am also running a koralia nano and koralia 1. I have not had a chance to check the magnet yet, but I will be for sure today.

I am certainly not blaming my nano at this point, but I'd like to know if there were any test results that indicated anything being awry.

Update:

Ran home over lunch and check my nano. Pulled the magnets, both peices of the magnet were visibly wet. Keep in mind, I've had this in my tank for less than 6 months. Here is a picture of the magnet:



Now it doesn't look nearly as bad as the others. To me, it does look like it is already starting to corrode/rust.

Any thoughts from anyone else?

This is a perfect picture of the critters that get between the magnet and the suction cup and the stuff they leave behind.

Oh, the tenacity of live.

My koralia nano pump magnet is completly sealed it came out accidentely the ohter day when i pulled it off the glass.

Well i have the same thing as that picture... but i use one of my koralias for mixing salt.... always have. and it still has those things. There are not creatures in the mixing bucket either.

That's a fair question. My parameters remained stable and well within accepted ranges throughout the whole time the tank what set up. I test prior to waterchanges every weekend. Testing is also the first thing I do whenever I notice something doesn't look kosher in my tank. In this instance I even bought a new test set, as my reagents were getting kinda old. New kit tested out fine as well. I also took a sample to my LFS just as a double check and his tests were within -/+ 1% of my results.

I will probably never know what was causing the issue as I have broken that tank down now that I have my new one set up so there is no way to continue to investigate the problem in my instance. I can tell you this, I had an Aipstasia on a small piece of rubble that even failed to thrive and spread in that tank. It always looked stunted. I forgot about it and threw it in the fuge of my new tank and in less than 3 weeks it has spread and I have 3 of them now. Good thing I was planning on getting some Pepperiment Shrimp. I guess the can live in my fuge first.

-Prof



Hard to say from that picture. I do see some discoloration though....

One of mine:

Lani,
Yikes. Can you tell if that is underneath the epoxy coating? It looks like it in the picture but I can't be 100% certain.

-Prof

Edit: I wish I could take pictures as well as you!

Well, I can't scrape the stuff off with my finger nail no matter how hard I try.. so I suppose it is under the coating. Looking at it in person... doesn't look bad at all. The majority of it is sealed in tight, so wherever the critters wiggled their way in would be the only exposure points... Also, the magnet is held so tightly in the suction cup that I don't see how much water could move in and out of there to spread any possible contaminants.. *shrug*

Did you see any critters living inside that tightly sealed suction cup that could have caused those lines? I should think that if something got in there to make all those lines that something would still be living back there that we would see. Actually I have seen corrosion under other plastic and epoxy coated metals in my workshop that looked just like that and it happened without the assistance of cryptic sea life.

-Prof

Same with my koralia that i use in the mixing container. There are no animals in the new salt water where the koralia is. And i have the same "rust" lines as those

Oh well.. I still don't see a huge issue with it.

Interesting. Thanks for the data point. I see where you posted that earlier and missed it.



back at ya!

I have 2 but have only been able to check the magnets on one so far.

This is what I found
current wet side:
Click to view attachment

current dry side:
Click to view attachment

The wet side was wet and flaking a little when I removed it.
I will need to give hydor a call tomorrow after checking my second nano.

I checked my #1 yesterday its 6 mos old and looks fine.

looks like a map of a river system!

water just travels that way......there is a wall at the gym where i work that looks like that from water damage...

Yep, my two k nanos had that when I got them. I let them sit out in the air for a week, and they continued to rust out of the water. On of them had a blister in the epoxy, and there was a mound of rust on top of it. Pretty interesting. Thankfully the suction cups work just fine without the magnets.

This is a one year old.Click to view attachment

WOW.... it looks like the more pictures we get, the worse the magnets become.

Just to clarify: The only thing we know is that the magnets corrode.

We still don't know that the corrosion causes problems.

Holy sh*t. Kill it with fire!!!

I have this Koralia NANO about a year and the magnets look like this in the picture below. Will Hydor replace a new set of magnet for me?

^ jtpq1290 - that is the cleanest 1 year old Koralia EVAR. woot.

OMG, that is pretty bad. Is there anyone here that would voluntarily put that in the tank and consider it safe?

I clean it every time I have a water change, never check the magnets though until I read this thread. My corals are doing fine so far, only one thing I notice lately is a film of reddish stuff floating on the water surface (I don't run a skimmer), don't know if it has something to do with the magnets.

Most likely not the magnets at all. This happens on my tanks that don't have surface skimmers. Probably just surface scum.

Steve

I just called Hydor talking to Mike, he will send me the new magnets. That's great! Hopefully the floating surface stuffs will disappear if it's not the scum.

This is a picture of a normal Koralia magnet from the very first batches of Koralias. It is the only type of magnet that people have had issues with. I want to stress that I still do not believe there is any issue here which impacts the health of our reefs. If however you are really concerned, we are exchanging them for newer versions.

I am going to post pictures of the other three newer versions of the nano magnets as well. I have not seen a single issue with any of the newer versions.

Click to view attachment

Yep that looks like the one everyone is having issues with. I sent my request throught the hydor website by using the contact us form. Is this the proper way to do it? I know in the past I sent one through there for a replacement grid and got it quickly and free of charge.

Steve

Click to view attachment

Click to view attachment

These are the next two versions. Again, there have not been any issues with these.

Click to view attachment

This is a photo of the newest version of the Nano magnet.

Nanos are safe and the magnets of Koralia Nanos made in the last year and a half are safe. They have multiple layers of protection and unless someone takes a drill to it, i don't see how any saltwater could make it to the actual magnet inside.

I know that if all you do is look at the few posts on this thread and the pictures displayed, it looks like everyone is having issues. I have only had 6 requests for new magnets since I offered to switch them out. There are tens of thousands of nanos out there that are problem free. Again, only the first few batches of nanos have the magnet that people are discussing.

Thankyou everyone for purchasing koralias and for letting us know how they are working for you after many years of service. I hope this answers your questions and alleviates peoples aprehension.

Sincerely

Hydorman

HydorMan, looks like the 2nd pic, the magnet is sealed up?? Is that corrrect? Also as hcsceo inquired about, how do we got about getting ours replaced if we have the original version??

I have been doing some research on magnets as well as some comparisons in my shop that I thought I would share. This was prompted by a lack of response from Hydor to my queries regarding the type of magnet that is used in the K-Nano’s. If you recall in a previous post another member was told by Hydor that they were not rare-earth magnets but were industrial strength magnets.
This is information about the most commonly used industrial magnets.

Ferric (Ceramic) Magnet: Iron Oxide, Barium and Strontium

[*] Relatively brittle & hard
[*] Good resistance to demagnetization
[*] Excellent corrosion resistance
[*] Raw material is readily available and low in cost
[*] Good temperature stability
[*] high coercive force and high electric resistance
[*] Most widely used permanent magnets.

Alnico Magnets: Aluminum, Nickel Cobalt

[*] Production by casting or powder metallurgical techniques
[*] Excellent stability over a wide temperature range higher than 500°C
[*] Strong corrosion resistance capability without coating for surface protection
[*] Good resistance to demagnetization from vibration and shock
[*] Good flux density at an reasonable cost
[*] Very hard & brittle

Rare Earth Magnets: This includes two specific types of magnets - Neodymium and Samarium Cobalt

Neodymium: Neodymium, Iron, Boron

[*] High resistance to demagnetization
[*] High magnetic values
[*] Excellent cost to performance ratio
[*] Reasonable temperature stability
[*] Very brittle & hard
[*] Poorest corrosion resistance of all commercial magnetic materials
[*] Not suitable for application which exposed in high temperature conditions

Samarium Cobalt: Samarium, Cobalt

[*] Extremely hard & brittle
[*] High demagnetization resistance
[*] Excellent anti-corrosion properties
[*] More expensive than Neodymium magnets because of limited raw material supply
[*] Outstanding thermal stability

I also did some experiments in my shop with a Ferrite magnet, a Neodymium magnet and a Hydor K-Nano Magnet. The Ferrite magnet was of a similar size and shape as the Hydor magnet. The Neodymium magnet I had on hand was the same thickness but about half as big in diameter. I should point out that my Neodymium magnet had a protective coating.

First a general strength test. I only had one Ferrite magnet so this test compares the Neodymium magnet and the K-nano magnet. 2 Neodymium magnets were impossible to pull apart by hand and had to be slid apart with considerable force to seperate. 2 Hydor K-nano magnets were impossible to pull apart by hand and had to be slid apart with considerable force to seperate. They effort took to seperate each type of magnet was comparable.

I decided to test hardness. Using a wood chisel with a Rockwell Hardness of 62 I tried to scratch all three magnets. Results: The Hydor Magnet and the Neodymium magnet took approximately the same amount of effort to produce a scratch. The scratched areas on both magnets were both a shiny silver color. The ferrite magnet took considerable more pressure as well as more stokes to produce a scratch. The scratched area was a dark gray color.

Next I used a diamond coated file on all three magnets. The Neodymium magnet and the Hydor magnet took the same amount of strokes to produce roughly a 1/8” deep groove on the edge of the magnet. On the Ferrite magnet the same amount of strokes produced roughly a 3/32” deep groove.

I then dropped all three magnets from a height of 4 feet onto a ceramic tile floor. The Ferrite magnet shattered on the first drop. The Hydor magnet sustained a small chip on the edge on the fifth drop. The Neodymium magnet suffered no damage by the fifth drop.

Last, I wanted to examine the cross section of each magnet. Below are the pictures. The magnet on the right is the Hydor Magnet, the magnet in the middle is my Neodymium magnet and the magnet on the left is the Ferrite magnet.



Please note I do not offer conclusions or suppositions regarding my research and testing but simply present the facts. I will allow you all to draw your own conclusions. I am simply sharing my findings with the rest of the community.

Again I would like to point out that we know earlier K-Nano magnets corrode. We do not know whether there are any negative affects on our tanks because of this corrosion. I personally would still like a definitive answer from Hydor regarding what exactly the magnets are made of so that any potential risk can be assessed.

-Prof

Good work prof. Would be cool to know what they are made of for sure but would be interesting to test for Barium and Strontium and see what the levels are at.

if you leave the magnet out it will suction onto the side of the tank.

Hydor sent me new magnets .They are awsome .I emailed and they came to my rescue.

+1


+1

Just an update: I had the same issue as most of you and noticed a lot of my mushrooms and zoas shriveling and dying so I e-mailed to get a replacement. After installing the new magnets about 2 weeks ago and 20% water changes 3 days in a row, I have seen a very significant increase in growth if my tank. IDK if it was really the magnets or just a coincidence, or maybe just the water changes, but everything is back to normal. Anyone else have any success with the new magnets?

i never had problems to begin with, so new magnets didnt do ne thing for me...