Coralife Marine Salt? Tell me what you all think.

[i_am_blokeman]

Hi Again Folks!

I live in Perth Western Australia and as always we are limited to what we can by from here in the way of salt etc etc.. Sydney,Melbourne can cater better to the marine community. And for that reason I can only choose for my new reef/coral setup salt brands like Coralife, Red Sea, Ocean Nature. Can someone tell me with the limitations I have what salt is best out of my list for a reef/coral setup??

Cheers
Kim

 

[dchao]

There are basically two types of salt mixes, one for fish only, and the other for reef.

You need a calcium and a alkalinity test kit, and then you can find out the content of each yourself.

For a typical FO salt: Alk=11, Ca=350
For a typical Reef Salt: Alk=8, Ca=420

You can get the more expensive reef salt for FO, but then you will be throwing all the calcium you don't need away, and dosing a lot of buffer into the tank to keep the pH up. FO salt is cheaper, and many people buy FO salt for reef if they have a calcium/kalk reactor for dosing the calcium (cheap).

The other key ingredient in the salt mix is Magnesium, if you have a Mg tester, you should also find out the Mg reading, and decide if you need to dose additional Mg into the water.

 

[MrChico]

tagging along I would also like to know if there are any differences in the brand names of salt.

 

[dchao]

MrChico,

there are a number of "salt polls" on RC already, do a seach you will see.