A General Guide to Salt Mixes

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

Yea... Coralife looks really good on paper.
OH YEA... gotta Filterguys RO/DI setup.
I have a little bit of everything... API, Red Sea, Salifert. I buy what I can find locally (small town) and whatever is diff. than what I already have if I want to double-check something. So now I have a suitcase full of stuff. I found a nice silver metal tool brief case at Home Depot.

Ah thanks... chem. 101 eh. So most salts have 0.3-0.5 ppm Nitrates. That's scarey. BUT... it's just a 10%-20% water change so it would dilute even more.

The Phos. levels in this test are shocking too. About a 1/3 are really high... including.. IO, RSCoralPro, Tropic Marin, SeaChem Reef.

 

[JRechcygl]

I have heard levels above .015ppm PO4 and .05ppm NO3 can cause agae issues

 

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

Yea... it'll thrive on low levels like that. Crazy.

 

[JRechcygl]

I have a question for Randy, if you said you use Instant Ocean and boost it with a potentially harmful additive, why not just find a better salt for YOU? Also, even if you do 1% H2O changes daily, which would correlate to closely 30% a month, wouldn't the bromide build up as well? Can't you find anhydrous CaCl2 that doesn't have bromide?

 

[JRechcygl]

Man SciFi you have a lot of tangs in a "small" tank!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I have a question for Randy, if you said you use Instant Ocean and boost it with a potentially harmful additive, why not just find a better salt for YOU?

What potentially harmful additive? Neither the Dowflake nor the MAG flake are harmful at all when used as I do. The things that you might think could be harmful (which would be what?), have you ever measured them in any other salt mix?

I use IO for a variety of reasons. It has a very long track record of success in reef aquaria. It has a balance of chemicals that I think is pretty good, and better than most. It is cheap. Adding my own calcium and magnesium gives me total control over those levels, and I don't need to accept what someone else decides is good.

 

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

Well... they're not too big.. small to medium. One day the Sailfin will probably get too big/aggressive. I might try to acquire a yellow bellow Pacific Blue next time. THe Powder Brown is rated for a 70 gallon tank actually minimum. The others are like 100 and up. However, my Powder Blue wouldn't tolerate him so that didn't work out. So I'm down to 3 now.

I try to lean towards herbivores. I noticed in a lot of the top tanks that Tangs and Wrasses are used more heavily. So I don't put as much meaty foods in the tank as with other fish. I thought I read Tang waste is a source of food for corals too. I hardly use any additives or coral food. But I'm still experimenting with everything.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12910310#post12910310 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JRechcygl
Man SciFi you have a lot of tangs in a "small" tank!

 

[kfick]

Hey Billybeau1,

Do you run a skimmer on your tank that you are using the various salts on? I'm curious as to which ones have the least surfactants in them. I have used Reef Crystals for the longest time but it will make my skimmer (tunze 9010) overflow for a day or two after a water change. Not kinda overflow, it will boil as soon as I start my sump back up. I switched to IO and supplement it and it only causes light boil over for an hour or two.

Both seem to contribute to my micro-bubble problem that I'd love to solve. I feel that maybe IO still has something in it causing micro bubbles, just not as bad as RC.

Randy, didn't you see a large increase in your downdraft skimmer output when you tried out RC? Any tiny bubbles in your tank?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Randy, didn't you see a large increase in your downdraft skimmer output when you tried out RC? Any tiny bubbles in your tank?

No, my sump allows all of the bubbles to be removed. It consists of two 44 gallon Brute cans plumbed together, and few bubbles make it to the second one, and essentially none make it to the main pump inlet which is about 3/4 of the way down the 3' or so deep sump.

 

[kfick]

I'm a bit jealous. I can only fit a 25g sump under the tank and it has to pump around 500-600gph through it to satisfy enough flow for the chiller. The bubbles are barely boyant so they don't have a chance to escape. California is a bit of struggle with reef tanks. Its 107 outside today - almost as bad as Nevada and Arizona.

I don't really want switch off of IO because I've found its the easiest salt to mix up with calcium at 450 each and every batch

 

[A.VOID]

Tried Oceanic first >>> Calcium too high (or not) but made me nervous about stability

IO >>> Calcium low and I don't have a reactor. My 2 part dosing threw some of my Alk numbers out of whack.

Just bought a bucket of Kent (great price and one of local highly reputable reef shops uses it and recommends it.) Looks like IO with better calcium ...

Anyone else using Kent? I didn't see any more feedback on it, but I skimmed the thread pretty quick.

 

[joebecker]

An LFS I frequent here also strongly recommended Kent, though I haven't tried it yet myself. I'd be curious to hear what others have to say about it.

As for me, I'm currently using a 60/40 blend of IO and Oceanic, and it's working well for me.

 

[Kissfan79]

Looking at the numbers on the first page of the thread....aren't some of those ALK numbers kinda' high? I don't mind supplimenting with calcium and magnesium but it just seemed some of the ALK values were too high. I just made my first batch of saltwater and used a bag of the Coralife salt. I may try the Kent Marine. I like and use several of their products.

Jim

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IO >>> Calcium low and I don't have a reactor. My 2 part dosing threw some of my Alk numbers out of whack.


The simple solution is to adjust the IO with just the calcium part, then you do not have that issue.

 

[subman719]

Ok, it's been a while since I posted here so here's an update on my salt & hair algae problem... I was using the Red Sea Coral Pro salt and that ended up being the problem with my hair algae. Nothing I did got rid of it until I finally switched to the Coralife salt based on the reviews here. Shortly after switching to the Coralife several months ago, my hair algae vanished and never came back! My corals are now growing like crazy and the tank is much healthier! Thanks to this blog and all of those who helped me switch salts!!!

 

[ksed]

I also had the same problem with RSP. I changed salts to IO and RC and hair algae was gone after a couple of months.
Good for you on noticing this problem

 

[Billybeau1]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12915156#post12915156 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Kissfan79
Looking at the numbers on the first page of the thread....aren't some of those ALK numbers kinda' high? Jim

Not when you consider you are only changing 20 or 25% of your water at a time. The higher Alk actually gets consumed rather quickly.

Example= Randy does small daily water changes in his tank with IO which runs between 12-13 dkh. I don't recall him mention what the Alk level of his tank is, but, I'd bet it runs around 10 dkh most of the time. But I'm sure he doesn't know because he does not test his water.

 

[Billybeau1]

I am currently using up all of the salt I bought for the test, however, my salts of choice are Reef Crystals and Coralife.

I did not pay any attention to skimmate production of my skimmer when performing these tests. Sorry.

 

[Billybeau1]

Someone asked which salts not to buy.

Out of all of the salts I tested, (2) did not make my list because of extremely low alkalinity numbers. Therefore, I do not recommend them.

Sera
Aquacraft Bio-Sea Marimemix

 

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12910310#post12910310 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by JRechcygl
Man SciFi you have a lot of tangs in a "small" tank!

Looking back through articles I found one reference on this... but I've seen it in one or two other TOTM's mentioned.

Mike Leonard's (Acropora Nut) TOTM

"Many may wonder how it is possible to keep so many tangs in a tank this size. Well, they work for me, too. The tangs are wonderful waste producers that feed the Acropora, allowing for intense coral growth." MIKE

Mike and many others talk about the benefits of wrasse's for pest control too. I have a Mystery and 6-line right now. But I wanted to get a couple others if I get a lot of SPS growth and some other fish need replacing. It's kinda to the point now adding any other fish of any type causes problems b/c I think stress levels increase with over-crowding. I put a cleaner wrasse in the other day and my Powder Blue was trying to eat him or something. Crazy.