switching salt- IO to RC

[phenom5]

hey,

long story short, i've always used IO salt. good price, good results, and it's readily available. my father-in-law was making a good sized dry goods order, so i piggy backed a bucket of salt on to his order. he ordered RC. normally i wouldn't have given it much thought, but i've been doing some reading about some other water chemistry stuff. seems that when people switch salt brands they do so slowly, either through small WC's (1g a day for a few weeks), or by doing half old brand/ half new brand to lessen the changes. the majority of the threads were discussing IO to Oceanic (or vise versa) switches.

does the same apply to IO & RC?

thanks

 

[barbra]

If you adjust the parameters of the water prior to adding it so that it matches what is currently in your tank you are fine. You can change as much as you usually would, no acclimation period is required.

 

[phenom5]

thanks.

i figured that i would mix up a gallon of each and run a full battery of test on each to see what parameters are different, and to see how much of a difference there is...then go from there.

 

[barbra]

You need to match the new water to what's in the tank, not to another gallon of new water just mixed. You want to keep the tank consistent with itself, not the water change water consistent with itself, if that makes sense

 

[phenom5]

yeah, i want to match my tank as far as stuff like SG, pH, and temp goes. but i was more concerned about some of the other levels.

the concern with Oceanic/ IO switches revolved around the Ca & Alk levels (and PO4 if IRCC). IO tends to mix up to around 330-350ppm Ca & 12-14dKH for Alk. Oceanic tends to be higher in Ca, but lower in Alk. people had issues if they just made the switch quickly, and did a good sized WC with the new salt brand. i was wondering if there was any kind of concerns like that switching from IO to RC.

 

[barbra]

You would only have an issue if you aren't adding the correct things to the makeup water to bring it to the proper levels before adding it to the tank.