I hate to even get into this thread, but as I have been waiting to put this out at some point on our dfwmas forum I might as well here. Sorry if its too long.
I have a 215rr barebottom tank mainly sps, the present one up for about six months, after the last one leaked, just transferred all of the livestock. I have a Mr-Reef skimmer, run ozone, use carbon(black diamond) 24/7 changed out every two weeks. And I have a refugium growing chaetomorpha. I use a My-Reefcalcium reactor filled with A.R.M. There is not a bulb on the tank older than 8 months. I test for calcium, alkalinity, magnesium, strontium, iodine-iodide, phosphates,and have a ph probe on an Aquacontroller to watch that.
Facts, I do have an ro/di unit to make water to mix my saltwater, it reads 0 on with a tds meter and as soon as I see it start to climb I change the filters. I mix saltwater in rubbermade container that you roll, it has a cover. I sit it in my closet with a pump, hooked to a timer that circulates the water for 3 hours twice a day, no light. To assure the water does not get stagnant I have a hose attached to the pump hanging above the water that splashes doown into the water surface.
I used Instant Ocean for years using the same mixing container that I have now. I switched to Oceanic salt last spring, almost a year ago. By the way I do a 33 gallon water change every two weeks. (normally) The main reason for the change was I liked the magnesium levels of the salt, as I never had a problem keeping calcium levels up.
A couple of month last summer I actually mixed it 50/50 with some left over buckets of Instant Ocean. I thought at first this was great salt and everything thing looked fine. But I did have problem with the alkalinity levels, running the calcium reactor and the high level of calcium already in the salt. The magnesium levels was about 1300, the calcium always around 500, no strontium and no iodine-iodide.
This fall about October, I went from one bucket to another. About the end of November, beginning of December I noticed the sps corals did not look right, like there was some color loss. Then this brown algae started to appear on the tips of the sps colonies. I could not tell if the algae was killing the tips or the tips were receeding and it was allowing the algae to grow. But it was growing fast. I also was having to clean the glass daily. Not looking at the salt, for weeks I started doing vigorous water changes,(you know the saying, dilution, is the solution). I looked at all the details I could think of and nothing was getting better, just worse. I went through that bucket of Oceanic and started in to a second I had.( same batch number) Finally going nuts I started looking at the salt, time I started the new buckets, the batch numbers, mainly not finding anything else wrong. Finally three weeks ago I went out and bought a bucket of Instant Ocean, I did back to back water changes of 35 gallons. I did another one friday two weeks after the first two. Within a week of the first two, the algae on the tips of the corals stopped increasing and now it is almost completely gone. The color on the sps corals, some that had gone brown has started to return. And I have been able to slow down on keeping the glass cleaned off.
Another thing I did notice and have thoroughly cleaned it out. The inside of the walls of my saltwater cleaning container were covered in this brown junk. I ran three gallons of vinegar for three days, hosed it out and still had to wipe it down with a towel, which was covered in this brown film. The only thing I had ever seen in the container in the past years from the Instant Ocean salt, was that gray flaky stuff that gets on the sides and bottom.
All of this purely coincidental, you can make up your own mind? Yeah I guess it could have been somthing else? But because of my personal experience the last two months, the calcium being way too high for normal magnesium levels, this also causing the alkalinty levels to be low,(yes I know I could constantly buffer) no strontium, no iodone-iodide,(whether or not they are needed), and who knows what else they left out of the salt mix. I for one have gone back to Instant Ocean. You all can make your own choice, besides its your money and your livestock.
. I never had nusicance algae before using Oceanic salt, and i was able to totally clear up the algae in about 40 days with many IO water changes (about 200% tank volume)
