Ok, ive spend most of the day doing a lot of research on saltmix analysis. There are several detailed analysis available including one performed recently by ATW and sponsered by a member on RC. Throughout all of the studies and reviews there seemed to be two constants. 1) every brand salt has small to large discrepencies from batch to batch 2) every brand of salt has mixed reviews.
One factor that i think is overlooked, and one im going to address, is settling. It seems that there are a lot of variances in the same batch/bucket of salt from one depth to the next. In some cases the variances can be very large. Today i went to home depot and picked up a bit auger used to mix concerete. At the very least, im going to mix the salt heavily when i first purchase it and then as needed.
The reason for my move to a new salt is simple, my saltmix sucks. Ive had really bad results since i switched ove about 2 months ago from IO and accredited the problems to other things. After elminating everything(i.e., dosing, food, etc) for several weeks with no new results im convinced its the salt. I have also read nothing but horrible things about the salt i used, not to mention that i have to dose Mg and Ca to get it up to where i want it when doing WC’s.
With this said, i have determined that my best two choices for a saltmix would be tropic marine reef pro or the new d-d h2ocean. i think im going to try the TM becuase its cheaper, more widely available, and i can get it shipped for $10.
Does anyone use either of these salts?
Weigh in on what salt you use, have used, and results you have had.
Im a reef crystals guy myself.
but then again, i dont do regular water changes and have a mostly sps tank. so dosing kalk, ca, alk and mg is a normal thing for me along with the occasional trace dose.
I go through spurts of doing water changes, but I cant honestly say I see a difference in my coral health when I do. I hear good things about TM and may try it in the future when my supply runs out. I have tried IO, red sea, and RC and dont see a noticable difference between any… from what you are describing it sounds like youve been using RC and are tired of some of the issues they have been having. keep us posted on your new results…
actually its crystal seas that i think is causing me a lot of problems.
reef crystals seems to be one of the better buys for your dollar. it seems like red sea pro, reef crystals, and seachem are all popular, affordable, quality mixes. i spend so much money on my tank that it just doesnt make sense to try and save a few bucks on cheap salt. i dont think having a high quality salt is overly important for the average hobbyist that keep fowlr or softies with a few lps. i have no problems keeping the easy stuff, its the challenging stuff that i think the cheap salt is giving me trouble with.
have you tried the get tanked salt.some of use are using it and all seems fine. i used instant ocean and switched to gettanked salt. i may try a new salt if i run out and need too. i dont test much at all i just do a 15 gallon water change every week and half or two weeks. when i do my test with color matching testing i am in ball park. the only thing i cant test is my mg.
i considered the gettanked but the two part is big deterrent for me. i dont doubt that its high quality salt from the feedback on here.
I try to test weekly. I test for Ca, Alk, Mg, No3, PH, SG. i also test for po4 and k as needed if things look off. A lot of these parameters are very flexible. The acceptable ranges, however, become a lot smaller when keeping more challenging and demanding hard corals.
i was just thinking and i am pretty sure these big companies do this on purpose to proliferate the business. This is why you will only people like get tanked get all the parameters correct.
i very much doubt that getanked would test perfectly and consistently. if it did they wouldnt be able to keep the salt in stock >LOL<
there is no advantage for a manufacture to produce inconsistent batches. i imagine that the inconsistencies are just inherit to the process and that the cost to guarentee a perfect ratio would be exorbitant.
Two part doesn't bug me a bit ... do the water change and throw the dry Ca into the overflow
yeah. i remember you mentioning that. ive had problems with precipitation before and would be reluctant to just throw it in my sump without disolving it first.
Crystal Seas has a reef salt also. Ken has been using it without the usual additions
i use the reef version. i tested my first box and if i recall Ca was around 300 and Mg was around 1000. I was content with buffering it becuase of the price. I didnt really notice anything good or bad about the salt besides the low Ca and Mg. When i started a 2nd box about three weeks ago was when the problems started. I did my first WC and a bunch of other maintanence. I lost my purple monti which was doing really well in the course of 2 days. On of the heads of my frogspawn retracted and still hasnt extended and the polyps on my digitat have been retracted. I thought it was possibly something else since i did a bunch of stuff the same day. i stopped dosing everything, stopped feeding the corals, and fed the fish only flake. i tore apart my entire system(sump, ro reservoir, makeup container, etc) and cleaned everything. still no luck. the only thing i didnt change was the salt. i then started to do a little HW and apparently crystal seas has a really bad reputation. i orderd a 200g bucket of TM pro reef and should be able to do my first WC this weekend. ill update any changes i notice.
I use rc but I have used io and it always tested low for calcium and so did the stuff that dpa sells that comes in a box. I wanted to try get tanked but never received any samples. I wish they had a salt that tested the same every batch it would be easier to keep levels on the mark as oppessed to the swings in levels
Here is a pretty good link to give an “idea” as to what to expect from the salt mixes we used. One thing to notice is the huge differences in Alk. For those that dose Ca, the higher Alk salts are probably better. For those of us that use Ca reactors the lower Alk would be much better.
Yup, I have been using the regular grade MEI CRYSTAL SEA mix for about 8 years. It always seems to have worked for me. Ive been using the Randy 3 part recipe for the past 3 or 4 years now so i always have lots of Ca or Mg to dose. I never really tested the old regular salt mix for Ca or Mg levels in the fresh mix. but recently i started using the BIO ASSAY grade of CRYSTAL SEA and ran a couple tests on it. i mixed it out to 1.027 and let mix over night, and calcium came up a little light at 380, but the magnesium was way low at 1000 like yours was. well, no problem for me. I got bags of the MAG FLAKE and C-FORCE in the garage. so i just add a bunch when mixing new salt water. I might give them a call and see what gives with the new mix.
Yes, when they make a batch of salt mix they combine a variety of chemical salts, of different size and shape crystals and tumble. vibrations from shipping/handling can make them settle out in layers and throw off the small batches we mix scooping from the top. So , remixing or tumbling the bucket before use might smooth some of that diference out. I will keep testing a couple more times to see if it was a recent annomoly or just low on ingredients. Low costs salts often are low on Mg.
But since i like to save money, I will keep using the low cost salt and just add more Mg and Ca . That costs me very little. At 1000 ppm Mg I think I figured a bucket of salt is about 2 1/2 cups low on Mag Flake. I can handle that.