I just did a water change and used up the last of my salt. But now that I have a reef going I was wondering if I should switch mixes. I currently use Instant Ocean sea salt and I would like to continue using Instant Ocean but I was just curious if I should switch to the Reef Crystals. What are the differences? Should I bother switching? What do you other reefers use?
Salt mixes
- Thread starter cichlid_king
- Start date
i have used the purple bag forever, i have powder supplements for calc/mag/ph/alkalinity/and liquid iodide....so i guess the reef crystals would save you some time dosing, the calc and mag...as long as it doesn't throw your ph off and there are no nitrates after mixing it right out of the bag, it could be beneficial
I'm currently using the Coralife salt mix, but I've used both types of Instant Ocean in the past. The standard Instant Ocean salt mix is better than the reef mix; I had trouble with algae with the reef mix because it had something in it that the standard mix didn't have (maybe higher nitrates and/or phosphates).
All brands have different ALK, Cal, + Mag #'s on them, testing your water weekly will give you some idea how much of these things the tank uses.
Also your water source comes into play as R/O water has nothing in the way of ALK elements and tapwater is loaded with them. If you have a few small corals your tank will use far less than that of a tank full of large LPS. In my case I started out with the Red Sea black bucket - very high in Cal, alk, + Mag infact it was too high, I had to switch to a mix with lower amounts to get the parameters in range.
Also your water source comes into play as R/O water has nothing in the way of ALK elements and tapwater is loaded with them. If you have a few small corals your tank will use far less than that of a tank full of large LPS. In my case I started out with the Red Sea black bucket - very high in Cal, alk, + Mag infact it was too high, I had to switch to a mix with lower amounts to get the parameters in range.
Okay, thanks guys. Ill keep using the sea salt because I get good readings from it. I dose for ph and alk already so it doesnt bother me to keep doing it. The bucket that I just finished had the perfect amount of calc so I hope I get another one that gives me 420 readings without dosing.
the chick at my lfs garauntees me they use the purple bag, which is what i use and dose all the rest....
So i ask her how she gets her ph up, she says she uses the salt to get it to 8.4.... I use the same bag, and the same water and the highest mine ever reads at off my refractometer is 7.8. GRRR stupid people.
So i ask her how she gets her ph up, she says she uses the salt to get it to 8.4.... I use the same bag, and the same water and the highest mine ever reads at off my refractometer is 7.8. GRRR stupid people.
She probably uses tap water lol. In my area the base ph in our tap water is 8.2. Which was really nice when I had a FW tank lol but kinda useless now. All of the LFS in my area use tap instead of RO.
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I would only use IO for a fish only setup
Tropic Marin Reef salt is pharmaceutical grade salt and has been tested to be as close as you can get to real salt water. It is expensive though
$90 for a 200 gal bucket
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Tropic Marin Reef salt is pharmaceutical grade salt and has been tested to be as close as you can get to real salt water. It is expensive though
$90 for a 200 gal bucket
Sent from my DROIDX using MonsterAquariaNetwork App