A General Guide to Salt Mixes

[Billybeau1]

Evil, you crack me up. :lol:

Happy Holidays to you.

 

[EvilE]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13965647#post13965647 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Billybeau1
Evil, you crack me up. :lol:

Happy Holidays to you.

Happy holidays to you as well! Be safe, and have fun!

P.S.--I use a combo of Coralife and Reef Crystals, and seem to have good results with that.....:smokin:

 

[Billybeau1]

Yeh, Calcium, Magnesium from the Coralife and Alkalinity from the Reef Crystals.

Sounds like a plan. Glad its working for you.

 

[Padrino]

After readiing this entire thread i have decided to go with the trop marin pro as there isn't much of teh higher end salts available in my area. Hopefully with all of teh posta and research done here i will not have to supplement as much or anything?

Thanks Billy for really putting the time and effort out there for over a year to help fellow reafers. Very honorable!

 

[Billybeau1]

Your welcome.

 

[Michael]

anyone know anything about tetra salt, its the cheapest around here by far, heres a link

http://www.onlineaquariumstore.com/acatalog/Tetra_Marine_Sea_Salt.html

 

[Billybeau1]

I haven't seen it yet around here. I'll look for it but the name itself kinda scares me.

Tetra tends to lend itself more towards fresh water and not salt water.

I'll check around nevertheless.

 

[Michael]

thanks billy

 

[Reefer Brian]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13965224#post13965224 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by EvilE
so, ultimately, what is the best salt to use?

AQUA-CRAFT, any of there mixes are the BEST.

 

[Billybeau1]

Well, I disagree totally with that Brian.

I have an Aquacraft mix that measures 3 dkh of alkalinity at 35 ppt.

Would you want to put that in your tank ?

You can have mine.

 

[ksed]

Does anybody know of a salt called Get Tanked Salt ,apparently a lot of Zeo users are using it. The specs on the web seem great, but would like to know from reefers.

Thanks

 

[Michael]

well billy ive bought a small bag of it and made some up for testing, these are my findings,
at 26 degrees c and at a sg 0f 1.026

calcium 400
alk 10
magnesium 1260

im an ameteur at this, but if you do manage to get your hands on some and do test it can you post your results please, thanks

 

[Billybeau1]

Those aren't bad numbers for a salt mix. If that's what it tests out to, It may very well be acceptable.

I'll see if I can find it.

 

[sly fox]

theres two gettanked ones...one for zeo, hence a lower dkh, and the one above looks the normal one...

 

[tonyespinoza]

Any tips on how to avoid residue?

Any tips on how to avoid residue?

Hi Billy -

Happy New Year!

Thank you so much for all the hard work. You know, the best thing about reefing these days (vs. back in the 80's when i first started as a kid!) is not the technology but the knowledge and the community of folks like yourself that are willing to mentor others and allow us to enjoy this hobby at a deeper, more experienced level than we might on our own.

As I mentioned in the other thread, I've been using natural salt water since I live in California and it's a good excuse to go to the LFS every week and I only have about 80g worth of tanks right now. But I'm finally building out a 300g system and have been preparing containers and such for mixing big batches of salt water every week.

I think I will mix an entire container (between 30 - 50g depending on the salt I choose) to avoid the settling issues within the shipping container.

But a while back when I first got back into the hobby I mixed about 40g of salt and ended up with white residue on everything. I decided I must have super/over-saturated the solution by putting too much salt in at once. I ran across this post about half way down the page in this large SPS tank thread that discusses the same issue:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1206908&perpage=25&pagenumber=21

Several theories popped up. One that it was too much salt at once. Another that it was caused by heat from heaters and pumps.

In the case of my precipitation nightmare it was Oceanic, which I see from your research is high in Ca and Mg.

Do you have any tips for avoiding it, apart from adding the salt slowly? Have you found any of the salt mixes less susceptible to the problem?

 

[tonyespinoza]

BTW, one solution offered in that thread was to add a bottle of carbonated water (Pellegrino!) per every 50g of salt water mixed. Does this make sense to the chemistry experts? Totally paranoid question, but is it safe to assume it wouldn't have any nitrates or phosphates?

 

[bertoni]

Carbonated water would lower the pH temporarily. I wouldn't use spring water due to possible contaminants. I'm not sure why anyone would do this, unless they're holding stock in Pellegrino.

 

[Billybeau1]

:lol: Good one Jonathan.

tony, You can continue to use Oceanic if you wish. I do not see the white residue of any problem except clean up once in awhile.

I used that salt for a bit and didn't see that problem. Maybe just make sure the water temp is around 79 or so and add it slowly to the water.

 

[tonyespinoza]

supposedly the carbonated water tip came from Fauna Marin.

here's another reference to it via a different manufacturer and thread.
http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/showthread.php?t=222248&page=3

-tE

 

[Medicine Man]

How much baking soda are you adding to the Coralife salt when you mix it up? Is that the salt you are using BillyBeau?