One more salt question

[Little Luey]

How critical is to stick to a brand name/manufacturer of salt? I know some guys who do not use anything but their brand "X"
I have used Instant Ocean for a while but then I just got Oceanic since it was on sale. I like how fast Oceanic disolves but other than that my tank always seem to be ok. I just would not buy a no-name salt, I feel if I stick to a name that has been around I should be good, right?
Why is it that Reef cristals is more expensive than IO if they are made by the same company?
I plan on having softies and a few fish, some PP shrimp.
Why is it that the salt will only give a ph of around 8.0 but the water needs to be at 8.2?

 

[Woodstock]

I suggest you find a salt that your corals/fish like and stick to it. Whatever brand you choose, ALWAYS test (PH, alk, ca, po4, mg) new buckets/bags. It's important to know what your putting in your tank.

I use and test both IO and Oceanic; both are similar with the exception that Oceanic is high in Ca & mg, and low in alk.

 

[gqjeff]

Seachems new reef formula.. The last salt you will ever use.. Seriously disolves very fast and has great numbers as far as params.. I have used IO and Oceanic before this but will never go back to either after sechem gave me 3 bags to try out for them... Seriously great salt... This is my personal opinion though..

Jeff

 

[BoomerD]

I'm not going to advocate for any particular salt mix, but stick with one of the better ones. Changing mixes all the time subjects your livestock to changing chemistry, which is reported to be another source of stress, and many people have lost nice corals because of that change. IF you want to switch brands, do so slowly. 5% weekly changes with the new salt is the usual recommendation, so if you normally change 10% weekly, use half new salt, and half old salt.

 

[Frankie]

I read somewhere that its good to change out brands once and awhile because the trace elements vary between salt mixes.
I always used the same company though. when i was useing salt mixes I used Tropic Marine. After time though I slowly changed my tank over to nutri-sea water. I found this to be the best for me and my tank but costly.

 

[Witfull]

i saw some bottled salt water at the LFS the other day,,,YIKES 4.4gal for $23.99+tax. thats 25.43 a bottle or $5.78 per gallon!!

 

[Little Luey]

Thats more than the price of gas!
One other thread talks about using 2 different salt mix together, I guess this is to complement each other?

 

[Frankie]

Well I guess it is a bit costly. for me my friends owned the lfs so i didn't pay the full cost. i was just making a point of the best salt i used. I'll most likely stick to what i like and to hell with cost. When i got into this hobby i knew it was expensive and just rolled with the punches instead of being cheep. i can tell you all that i never had any water quality issue that im always reading about like briopsis, red slime and all them other things you get from useing tap water to mix salt even after you invest $$$$$ into ro systems ect....
even the algea growth on the glass was min. and i only had to clean my glass once every two weeks.

 

[UnderWaterParadise]

I would also advocate sticking with one brand...........IMO IO is the best for the $$$. I ried Oceanic for a while and it was a Phosphate disaster.....needless to say never again wil I use it!

 

[gqjeff]

I have a few friends having great success going 50-50 IO and Oceanic.. They tend to bring the params inline instead of 500 Ca with Oceanic and 12 alk with IO...

Jeff

 

[UnderWaterParadise]

I can tell you my expierence with mixing IO and Oceanic was a BAD one. I lost 3 Rare LPS and a couple SPS during the change. If you search the other Reef boards you will see a lot of people had problems switching back to IO after using Oceanic. I still cannot figure out why it would effect anything

 

[gqjeff]

Maybe you had a bad batch.. Some of the guys doing this have some of the best looking sps I have seen in person... MHPI...

Jeff

 

[UnderWaterParadise]

Possibly. I was having really High Phosphate reading in newly mixed batches of the Oceanic. Since I have switched back to IO no phosphate readings at all. I only went through 2-3 buckets of Oceanic before going back to IO

 

[gqjeff]

Yea for awhile many people complained about Oceanic.. Was it during that time frame many people had prblems with it ? I used Oceanic for a couple yrs with no problems but found that the new seachem reef formula is far superior for the params I am trying to keep in my system..

Jeff

 

[cheeks69]

I was having really High Phosphate reading in newly mixed batches of the Oceanic

Yes I have heard that also. I did try Oceanic for a while and never really had any problems but it is unbalanced so I decided to just use Crystal Sea. IO out of all the salts tested is lowest in PO4.

 

[UnderWaterParadise]

Well I started using Oceanic in Sept. 2004 and stopped using it about 2-3 months ago. The only reason I started using it was it disolved so fast and I was moving into my new home and needed to mix some water up fast. After the first month using Oceanic I had HUGE algea blooms that I am still trying to get rid of. My membrane on my RO/DI was toasted as well so that did not help. After 2-3 months back on IO the algea does not grow as fast at all and when I get my new RO/DI unit next week I hope to get rid of all the Algea

 

[gqjeff]

Yea thats about the time all the complaints took place as I rem.. Sorry to hear you got some of the bad salt.. Glad IO is working out for you. If you decide to try something else I am serious when I say the new seachem reef rocks..

Peace, Jeff

 

[UnderWaterParadise]

I have heard good things about the New Seachem stuff

 

[nigle]

Oi!

Well I had a very long 'chat' [over 30 minutes] with the guy at the Crystal Sea booth at the Backers Show in Chicago this October and he said all kinds of stuff, well he was selling his product after all, and I was able to fanagle a 50 gal bag from him to 'try'.

He knows about all the 'tests' that Dr. Ron has done. He mentioned that a lot of the salt comes from the China salt flats; in fact a lot of the companies get their salt from China; and he mentioned that the reason why their 'product' is as consistant as it is, is due to the fact that they 'make up' their 'batches' of salt from small tubs of 'mixed components' that are mixed together in small batches [like 500# at a time or something] so the end result is a 'chemically' constant 'salt mix', whatever.

Anyhoo I tried some of it with my Oceanic so the 'mix' wasn't shocking, and nothing happened. [well my tank sprung a leak a week afterwards, but I doubt that it was the CS, HA!] But nothing is sometimes a good thing Martha, nothing died, went into shock or anything like that.

The next batch I made was a CS only batch, and again nothing happened, so I thought that what ever the differences from one to another wasn't going to cause 'damage' to my tank critters. You might be saying "What the heck is nigle getting at?" Well it is this, in the posts above there were many many comments about 'delta change' [the name of my next book] when going from one salt to another, and yes sometimes change is NOT a good thing Martha, and with my water changes, nothing happened.

Now one 50gal bag isn't going to do much with a 75 gal OVERFLOW, FINALLY! as opposed to my glass 'box' that sprung a leak, but the one thing that I did notice with the CS only mix that when I tested the pH it was right at 8.30!, none of the other salts I EVER used did that, so there is buffering in there.

So after all this typing [because I got a letter saying 'where have you been?'] I'm going to be adding a few cups of CS [I bought a bucket of it finally] in my Oceanic salt [I have 4 buckets of it, well a sale IS a sale!] mixes for as long as the CS bucket will last like that and sea what happens, hopefully nothing.

Cheers!
nigle
!~!