Thinking about switching salt mixes.

[DivingTheWorld]

For the past year or so since I started my reef tank I've been using Red Sea Coral Pro salt. For the most part it's fine, although I do need to dose a little muriatic acid to drop the Alk in my water change water. I have had all the usual issues with Cyano, Hair Algae, etc., my sps have not done particularly great and frankly RSCP salt is expensive. As my supply is winding down, I'm thinking of switching. My tank is SPS and Zoas.

I've been doing a lot of reading on RC and come down to two salts, regular Instant Ocean and Tropic Marin Pro Reef.

Tropic Marin is crazy expensive, even with the sales this weekend and I've read some recent reviews of super low Alk. So that brings me to Instant Ocean. It's super cheap and if I'm dosing something in my water change water already, I might as well use cheaper salt...right?

How many of you use regular Instant Ocean in your SPS reef tanks? Do you dose your water change water before adding it to your tank? If so, what do you dose, Muriatic Acid, Cal, Mag? How consistent have you found the salt? Anyone have issues with regular Instant Ocean?

 

[3drockz]

I have a mixed reef & I was a big user of RSCP and switched to IO-RC 6 months ago. Tank was not doing great but after new salt things have been much better. More PE on my SPS, good growth on all coral, cheaper salt, etc.

For a 10gal PWC, I add 80ml of Cal before a water change, Alk & Cal are low in my fresh salt mix but I've tuned my doser to normalize it as I keep doing water changes.

My params are pretty consistent so far, never had any issue with IO-RC.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

I read posts on IORC with people having issues with the added vitamins. They were seeing issues like Cyano cropping up. I was thinking regular IO due to less additives contained within.

 

[reev]

I am mostly using RC and sometimes IO. I do not know if there is a big difference between them two. RC is slightly more expensive than IO, but it is still cheap - I usually buy it online for less than $50 for a 200G box.

I only dose kalk through ATO. I had no issues with the salt, for over 8 years now. My tank has LPS, SPS (including some more sensitive such as dragons and chalices), some Zoas, ricordeas. They all look happy & have good growth.

I have no Cyano in my tank. I have some very little hair algae growth in the refugium & the overflow box.

I don't test the water for anything except the salinity of WC batch, so I can't comment on Ca, Alk. The corals are happy, the coraline growth is good as well, that's enough for me to stand back & relax

 

[EnderTurtle]

Umm i was using reef crystals for months. No cyano or algae problems.

If Cyano, probably due to lack of flow in some spots and high phosphates/nitrates.


Im using D&D salt right now. Works great.

 

[vhuang168]

I like high parameters so rscp works great for me.

I think you should find a salt that mixes out to a set of parameters as close to what you want your water to test out to as possible. Minimizes any adding or subtracting additives to get there.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

Found another good thread. It's threads like this which point me to regular old Instant Ocean instead of paying double for special reef brands:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2481936&highlight=instant+ocean

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2516895&highlight=best+reef+salt

And it's stuff like this which makes me worry a little about IORC:

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2485308

Looks like it may be cleanest and easiest to use regular IO, drop the Alk, and boost the Mag and possibly Cal. A little more work but a cleaner salt for a lot less money.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

I like high parameters so rscp works great for me.

I think you should find a salt that mixes out to a set of parameters as close to what you want your water to test out to as possible. Minimizes any adding or subtracting additives to get there.

In a perfect world I would probably go with Tropic Marin Pro Reef as that's closest to what I go with (7 Alk, 440 Cal, 140 Mag). But it costs $85/bucket and even TMPR can vary by batch according to threads here.

I seem to be reading more and more threads about water quality issues running Red Sea (blue and pro) which is why I'm considering switching. My water quality has always tested well, but my sps results have been mediocre.

 

[Crispy001]

To add my bit of anecdotal evidence, I used IORC for my nano for two years and the Ca and Mg levels were terrible (~350, 1200, sometimes worse). RSCP matches their advertised levels and I certainly wouldn't go back.

Are you dosing to keep parameters in check?

 

[DivingTheWorld]

To add my bit of anecdotal evidence, I used IORC for my nano for two years and the Ca and Mg levels were terrible (~350, 1200, sometimes worse). RSCP matches their advertised levels and I certainly wouldn't go back.

Are you dosing to keep parameters in check?

Yep, I dose Cal, Alk, Mag with an Apex.

 

[swk]

Thinking about switching salt mixes.

I use IO and the tank does VERY well for me with it. I drop the alk with muratic and boost calcium. Mag sometimes needs adjusting, sometimes not. Test a new batch when you get it and adjust as needed. I can get a 200 gal box for 35 bucks shipped. That's hard to beat

Sorry for the crap iphone pic. I have a thread in the SPS forum with pics from a real camera

 

[DivingTheWorld]

I use IO and the tank does VERY well for me with it. I drop the alk with muratic and boost calcium. Mag sometimes needs adjusting, sometimes not. Test a new batch when you get it and adjust as needed. I can get a 200 gal box for 35 bucks shipped.

Your tank looks great. Where do you buy it $35 shipped from?

 

[swk]

Keep an eye out for sales. Seems like Big Als, Pet Solutions, DFS or that pet place will have it on sale regularly. After 50 bucks shipping is usually free, so I'll get 2 boxes and free shipping for around 70 bucks.

Thanks! The tank did NOT look like that on Red Sea Blue bucket lol...

 

[Reefer_Addickt]

I like the HW-Marinemix, I switched not too long ago from IO. HW is on sale at BRS right now.

 

[frost0fractal]

I've used Red Sea in the past, but use BioSea Dual Phase now. Things do well in my tank. I have no idea which salt is better or best, but I think it's just based on what you trust. Meaning I've seen some very impressive tanks that use what I'm using so I see no reason to switch.

 

[maddhugan]

I use IO

I use IO

I Use instant ocean, and the only reason is because it is cheap. Not an expert in growing corals (not yet), but planning on becoming one though so I can't comment on the salt brands and compare and contrast. I used to use kent marine and didn't like it, and I don't know the reason why I DON'T LIKE IT. It might be just a hatred because my fish were not doing well when I used it, and my sps died when I use kent marine. May be I didn't maintain the water parameters properly while I USED kent marine salt. What ever the reason might be, but I just hate that kent marine salt.
So I guess my input is the most useless one. Again, I use IO because it is the cheapest and my fish live there without any problems. I did have cyano, hair algae, slime algae and some red floating scum etc for a long time..... I even had algae growing 12 inches high from the bottom of the tank and were waving with the water flow as if they were a seagrass bed(I have bare bottom tank). I must say I had more than 20 species of algae and my tank looked like a green scummy pond although I had crazy high flow in my tank. I had a huge bean animal flow setup and I would say I had 4000 gph flow with that huge pump on my 130 gallon tank and 60 gallon sump. I had all these when I had kent marine salt.
I put a Biopellet reactor, switched to Instant Ocean, switched to a huge protein skimmer, and introduced a powder blue tang and everything is gone now. It took a month though. My tank look super clean now. Like the ones you see in the forums. really really super clean and crystal clear. I give credit to the biopellet reactor and my huge protein skimmer. I never thought about salts having anything to do with cyano though. I think biopellet reactor and skimmer did the job. I do have a problem now though. That powder blue tang became extremely fat by eating all that algae and because he became strong and fat, he even attacked my blue throat trigger. He wanted to kill everything I introduced into the tank. So I have to intentionally make that tang weak. I threw him in my sump and didn't feed him for a while. He is neither too fat nor too skinny now and I introduced him back in the tank now and he is behaving very well now.

 

[CJBuckeyes]

I've tried them all over the years. For me running a small sps tank, matching Alk is the most important factor. I run my Alk at about 9. IO was too high (11+), Tropic Marin was too low (high 6's). ESV mixes up around 9.

There are two major pluses and minuses to this salt.
+ Mixes totally clear very quickly. IO and other brands always end up with this brown sludge in the mixing bucket. I've heard some people claim it's a binding agent (clay), and others say IO is made for use with tap water and it a heavy metal neutralizer. Don't know, but it bugs me.
+ Since you mix the four different components yourself, every batch is consistent. If you use a pre-mixed brand and don't use the whole bag, you can see some inconsistent batches.

(-) You need to mix the four parts. It's more work, but I don't mind doing if for the consistency.
(-) Cost

 

[maddhugan]

four part?

four part?

:sad2:

I've tried them all over the years. For me running a small sps tank, matching Alk is the most important factor. I run my Alk at about 9. IO was too high (11+), Tropic Marin was too low (high 6's). ESV mixes up around 9.

There are two major pluses and minuses to this salt.
+ Mixes totally clear very quickly. IO and other brands always end up with this brown sludge in the mixing bucket. I've heard some people claim it's a binding agent (clay), and others say IO is made for use with tap water and it a heavy metal neutralizer. Don't know, but it bugs me.
+ Since you mix the four different components yourself, every batch is consistent. If you use a pre-mixed brand and don't use the whole bag, you can see some inconsistent batches.

(-) You need to mix the four parts. It's more work, but I don't mind doing if for the consistency.
(-) Cost

Do they really sell four part salt? never heard of it. what is it? can you please explain more on this?

 

[woodnaquanut]

:sad2:

Do they really sell four part salt? never heard of it. what is it? can you please explain more on this?

Yes they do make a 4 part salt! It's made by ESV, the same folks that make B-Ionic two part. Two parts are solid (NaCl and Mag sulfate) and two parts are liquid.

I use it and love it. There is never any 'extras' left in the mix container. Even if the solids have hardened into big clumps, you can just toss them into the mix container and they dissolve completely.

The other big plus for me is the lack of salt dust. All the one part mixes have some VERY small particle components. Probably because these don't dissolve easily. I find them very irritating.

I find the extra work involved very minor. I weigh out the parts. It's fast and accurate.

As stated before the downside is it's expensive.

 

[swk]

I've heard great things about ESV One of the things I like most was the owner's response to some triton tests that showed some elevated elements. He pulled that specific batch and offered replacements free of charge. To me that screams accountability, which I like. The price and alk level have always outweighed the benefits for me. Although I hear there is a low alk version in the works.