What's the best salt mix?

Litespeeds

Litespeeds

New member
Is salt mixes as good, better or worse than natural sea water? Right now I am purchasing natural sea water for about $.75 per gallon. I have a 90 gallon tank but with maybe 70 gallons of water so I am changing 20 gallons every month.
My current cost is about $15 each water change but if I go with a good synthetic salt, I know I can save some money. What salts should I go with and what salts should I stay away from? Thanks.
 
The only mixes I have ever used is Instant Ocean. Regular and Reef crystals. fairly cheap mix, very consistant, and you can find it most everywhere. I have had no problems with IO.
 
My experience with Instant Ocean is good also. My LFS sells it to me for $50 per 160 gallon bucket, which works out to about 31 cents a gallon. A few years back, I had some problems with Red Sea and Marine Environments, very low alk and detectable phosphates, so if you were going to use one of those brands, I would get the smallest bag they sell and test it. Also, check out this recent salt poll.
 
litespeeds,

I am taking down my reef, and am selling bags of instant ocean for $11 each or 3 for $30. I am also in the bay area "castro valley." Let me know if you are interested.
 
I guess the majority is using Instant Ocean so I guess since the price is right, that will be the salt that I will be using. Thanks.
 
Instant Ocean for the win, no doubt... Stay away from natural sea water as it could contain lots of phosphates, oils and other organics that will just cause many problems in the future. 75 cents a gallon for natural sea water is expensive, you can buy premixed IO saltwater for 50 cents a gallon around here.
 
I give a thumbs up to Instant Oceans but I do love Tropic Marine, the stuff mixes fast and has good amount of supplements. When I change from IO to Tropic Marine two years ago I instantly saw the difference. But I doughted that it could have been that easly noticable. Soo, when I restarted after Katrina, I used IO due to the cheapness, well I changed back to tropic Marine two weeks ago and yes, that right! I notice the difference again. Corals open up more, polyps extention greater. I know someone is going to get on here and argue against this but this my experience on two seperate occasion. I'm a believer!
 
I use Tropic Marin Pro cuz that fish place is not too far from my house and I can get a 200 gal bucket for 60$, without the shipping! :D
 
I used IO exclusively for years - went through those buckets like crazy. But when I started my nano I bought Oceanic at PetsMart - love it, love it, love it. It dissolves so fast and has a higher calcium level than IO that my calcium stays above 500 with no additives. With IO I battled constantly to get my calcium above 350. I dripped kalk, tried everything on the market and nothing worked. Mind you, this was in a 200 gal. tank with lots of lps and tons of coralline on everything but it was still an uphill battle.

Anyways, I vote for Oceanic. :p

Laurie
 
I started my tank with Oceanic, then used a 160 gallon bucket of IO from the LFS. My Xenia died, everything else looks healthy. I'm still going to switch back to Oceanic, judging by the comments in here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

E
Setting up new 60 gallon tank. Mixing initial water question
Replies
7
Views
263
Elmareefer
E
jbraslins
Automated RODI/Salt mixing station with 2 50 gal reservoirs in uninsulated garage?
Replies
7
Views
1K
griss
griss
oceangopher
Tankpocalypse Now
Replies
2
Views
113
Reefing102
Reefing102
padi200
Which salt and 4 more things!
2
Replies
30
Views
1K
Billfishbrsin
B
A
New, but Not New to the Hobby
Replies
17
Views
3K
Guygettnby
Guygettnby
Back
Top