Red Sea Salt

[Brian60077]

Since I likely will be going out to get another skimmer later today, also need to get salt. Went to a new to me LFS yesterday and got a large GSP frag, hopefully the Flame do not try to make it his salad bar and a green hammer coral, and noticed they have the smaller bucket of Red Sea salt on sale for $35.00 a bucket, and have it either in a blue bucket or black bucket for the same price. Which is the better of the 2? Was just gonna grab a 55 gallon size bag of the instant ocean but have heard that the Red Sea is much better.

 

[Reefing102]

To me salt is salt. I cross between instant ocean and reef crystals but $35 for Red Sea (if it’s the 175 gallon bucket) is a fantastic deal IMO, I’d probably buy that. With that said, Red Sea blue bucket is generally considered a standard salt mix with “normal” alkalinity (around 8 dKH), while the black bucket (Coral Pro) has higher alkalinity (around 12.5 dKH) and is generally designed for systems with heavy coral growth. There are other numbers that register higher with black bucket but can’t recall them off the top of my head.

 

[Brian60077]

I think it’s the smaller bucket

 

[Uncle99]

Since I likely will be going out to get another skimmer later today, also need to get salt. Went to a new to me LFS yesterday and got a large GSP frag, hopefully the Flame do not try to make it his salad bar and a green hammer coral, and noticed they have the smaller bucket of Red Sea salt on sale for $35.00 a bucket, and have it either in a blue bucket or black bucket for the same price. Which is the better of the 2? Was just gonna grab a 55 gallon size bag of the instant ocean but have heard that the Red Sea is much better.

Depends somewhat on what major parameter levels you keep.
I’ve used Black for more than a decade which mixes at about 11.5, 465 and 1365 for me at 1.026.
However, even those being on the higher end if I only do say a 10% water change weekly, my parameters are mostly remaining steady at 9.5, 450 and 1340ppm.
I’m not convinced at what’s better, I seen both used with stunning results.
I do think changing, just for the sake is not a great idea.
I use RS becuase it is always available close by to me, never out of stock in more than a decade now.
Tad bit more pricey.