Basically took out the NaCl which you purchase yourself, which saves on shipping. Mad props for this one. This is just the sort of economic and environmental type stuff the hobby needs. This isn’t like buying crappy salt that you discover is low in Calcium or Magnesium and wonder what else is missing from the mix.
GolfC
I knew Chris was working on some new products and a new website, but this is the first I have heard of this particular product. I can’t wait to see the pricing and reviews.
Very Interesting…I am debating trying a different salt. I would love to find something that would allow me to get away from having to add baking soda and calcium. After all my tank is all softies I should not be consuming a great deal of calcium…But for some reason I have to dose it. I would like to find a mix that is in the 450-470 range in calcium and in the 10-11 dkh range in alk…Not to mention Mag in the 1300 to 1400 range and PH in the 8.6 area. Any ideas for me??? I was thinking of trying Coralife. The numbers look good on the Aquarium water testing results page and its real cost effective!!!
I don’t know, I would imagine some stability over time would help more than changing salt every few months… What are your thoughts, cause this is something I have been thinking about for a while.
I pretty much change salts every time i run out. Look at it this way, just like the advantages of feeding many different types of foods, what one salt may lack, another may have a lot of. And vice versa. By changing salt brands often, it seems to give me the most rounded blend of everything. And basically even out all imbalances between brands.
Paul
You would need to find a local clean source of NaCl locally and price it out. It likely still won’t be cheap, but should be a great improvement in price without sacrificing quality. As discussed in another thread it is expensive, when making salt, to get pure material so that you know specifically what you are adding without residue of other items. This “Pre-mix†is still going to end up being the same thing as Brightwell Salt, so it will burn you if you stand your hand in the dry salt with a wet hand and will still have the same smell.(The reasons I believe you didn’t like NeoMarine and some of the things which could be considered negative and are different from other brands) I’m still sorta on the fence about NeoMarine in general, but don’t really have much negative to say about it.(being that I am EXTREMELY picky I also don’t jump on whatever the new thing is until it is widely proven and agreed apon, especially if there are significant risks involved)
It is a real shame Brightwell’s Salt came out after a lot of those salt survey/tests. I would have really liked to see how it held up. The tests still would have the same biases built in, in theory. Nothing’s perfect, but I still would have liked to see.
I am really interested in this as a more affordable economic solution. That being said if it is saving us shipping locally from a manufacturing plant in PA…. not sure how this will work out in the end. May still have to go through several places before it shows up at the door. Much of the expense of Tropic Marin Pro is because it is imported from Europe for example.
[quote=“fishguy9, post:6, topic:3309”]
I pretty much change salts every time i run out. Look at it this way, just like the advantages of feeding many different types of foods, what one salt may lack, another may have a lot of. And vice versa. By changing salt brands often, it seems to give me the most rounded blend of everything. And basically even out all imbalances between brands.[/quote]
This is actually not a horrible idea and what I used to do. The other reason I would change often is because while there wasn’t a significant brand that stood out to me as better, depending on how much cash I had at the time there was a significant difference in the amount of salt I could get with different brands at different places. This was back before I even had a skimmer, decent lighting, any corals, and before I had even used a calcium test kit.
If you believe the tests that were done that showed + and – with every type of salt and don’t think that any of the things they found would have you choose one brand all the time, then it makes sense to switch it up.
jon, thanks i wasn’t gonna rush out and grab it. about 450 gals for 120 shipped, and you areexactly right about the neo dislikes.
chck yr email. thanks
Uhhh, good morning. it makes good sense to me. the bulk of sea water salt is good old sodium chloride. and with shipping prices as high as they are getting, leaving that bulk out makes good shipping sense. NaCl is really cheap. i figure the 40 pound bags of water softener salt would work just fine. like less than 10 bucks for 40 pounds? morton salt should be good. its drinking water quality. i dont think we would want to use iodized table salt, might get an over dose of iodine. im sure there is enough in the salt mix. they sell the softener salt at HD and Lowes and sears, and just about anywhere. it just comes in half inch pellets. so either crush it or disolve the measured amount first.
so let’s just do the math. 40 lbs for $10= $110 for 440 lbs [almost the 450 lbs they sell] plus the $120 = $230 .
already made neomarine is about $70 for 150 gallonsX3 =$210 to have the 450 gallons
all in all, hmmmm
holly molli !! i think you confused gallons of mix with pounds of sodium chloride. you might only need 87 pounds of NaCl to add to the 450 gallon mix. usually a 150 gallon mix bucket of salt weights about 43 pounds. so 3 buckets would weigh 129 pounds and make 450 gallons of sea water. NaCl makes up 68% of the mix so 0.68 x 129# = 87 pounds of sodium chloride to add. or about 20 bucks worth. that sounds better.
After searching around on Google a bit I found this extended description of the “pre-mix†on Brightwell’s site.(As well as some articles on other sites about it which provide less information then is on the site.)
The second to last paragraph goes into recommendations for NaCl.
When I first heard about Brightwell’s new salt I thought this would be the new big thing in the industry. A search for threads containing the word Kalibrate on reef central turns up one thread. A google search for “Brightwell NeoMarine Kalibrate” comes up with a whopping… 1 hit?
How can such a good idea and money saver not even be talked about in this hobby full of over analyzers and skeptics.
I have a small bucket of it in front of me, but have yet to take the time to locate some salt and try it out. On Brightwell’s site it says:
“For specific recommendations of sodium chloride, contact us directly.”
I am waiting to hear back from Chris.
Meanwhile I haven’t seen this in any store in the state.(not that many typically carry a selection of better reef salts)
Part of the benefit it would seem to having 4 parts would be to counteract where you screwed up somehow and dosed an imbalance somewhere. However I want a completely balanced solution. I strongly believe in keeping the levels close to where they should be, but most importantly balanced all of the time.
Just to add tot his salt discussion. I have been using the Seachem Salinity for about 6 months. The results are OK but I just switched to Oceanic. I made my first batch on Sunday and did my first 50 gallon water change. I tested 4 things before I used it. Alk was in the 10-11 range. Calcium was in the 520 range magnesium was in the 1440 range and ph in the 7.9 range. I say range because I am only using the API test kits for everything but Magnesium that was salifert. Overall I am real happy with the test results from Oceanic and equally impressed on the speed that it cleared up. I will continue to use Oceanic and see what the tank does. For the price you can’t beat it in my opinion (so far)…
