What is the best Sea Salt?

[Anonymous]

Woo! nice post, ctgretzky99

Thanks Unleashed..
What do you think is the best reef salt?

No idea :twisted:

It really depends on what animals you wish to keep, or are already keeping, how often you plan to do waterchanges, and if you plan to test and dose the tank regularly.

For example: A nano reef or well-stocked fish/coral tank that requires high CA and ALK levels and needs frequent waterchanges will benefit from a decent reef salt. Whereas a Fish Only With Live Rock (FOWLR) needs only a good quality salt like Instant Ocean to thrive.
Reef tanks that are understocked and have daily dosing or CA reactors require fewer waterchanges, so high-level salts are pointless. This is why many reefers use Instant Ocean, although it would behoove them to use higher level salts anyways. Nothing would go to waste.

As you can see, it depends on YOU which salt will be best suited for your uses.
If you wish to learn how to dose/maintain your coral reef tank, there are many articles (WONDERFUL!) in the Advanced Aquarist magazine section here at RDO... http://www.advancedaquarist.com/

If the articles confuse you, (and they will )just post your questions in these forums and some chemical engineer will be happy to confuse you further :twisted:

 

[Anonymous]

Woo! nice post, ctgretzky99




If the articles confuse you, (and they will )just post your questions in these forums and some chemical engineer will be happy to confuse you further :twisted:

Thanks unleashed. All i know i owe strictly to the different boards I visit and the experience of all of you combined. I thank you all for the knowledge and the time you and others take to post your thoughts, ideas and experience.

And as far as your other statement, nothing could be more true!

 

[Anonymous]

I'd like to add to ct's most excellent post, but just slightly.

If you use a maxijet 1200 to mix your water, you can add an airline to it. That takes away the need for an airpump and airstone. When ready to add water to the tank, remove the airline and add an appropiate length of tubing and just pump the water into your tank or sump. No need for lifting heavy buckets of water. I think a rio 800 also has enough oomph to do the same thing.

 

[Anonymous]

damn you knowse!
lol...excellent idea to pump it into the tank and not have to use air pump/stone. I had the rio from when i first had my tank, and the air pump/stone before i knew you didnt need it.
For me however, it is my workout routine so i can get big and ripped lifting buckets....grrrrrrrrrr!
:x my arms are huge!

 

[Anonymous]

Well, if you bend at the waist, you'd get those 6-pack abs, but probably kill your back :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

hehe...my abs are fine baby. And my routine has brough me nothing but a super hard body....here is a recent pic of me:

Attached image deleted. Pretty nasty to look at and irrelevant to the subject at hand. --Matt--

 

[Anonymous]

:lol: :lol: 8O

 

[Anonymous]

ew

This should be in the Sump so you gross out the right crowd. :wink:

 

[ZooKeeper1]

Actually, I am all for trying other salts. I trust Instant Ocean, but I have tried others. And the latest one I've tried is the one I will stick with. But like all things, switching over has to be done properly.

I think the problems people have when changing salts are due to differences in water parameters. Salt brands differ in levels of alk, ca, and mg, for example. So, if I go from using Instant Ocean (low levels) to a salt with higher levels, and I do a waterchange on a tank that has even lower levels, the resulting change in water chemistry may have consequences.
And my cynicism tells me that the people who have the biggest problems are probably those who have NO idea what any of those levels are in their tanks, compared to the new salt they just purchased..how many actually test the new salt they just bought and mixed up, and compare the results to their tanks daily test results? Probably none of them.
And there are a lot of other elements that we do not test for.

:

Have you tried switching to Crystal Sea, plenty of people had problems doing that, and most were very experienced sps keepers

 

[Anonymous]

I had very bad experiences with Crystal Sea the only time I tried it. It looked really dirty after it was mixed and it really pissed off my leathers. I may have just gotten a bad batch though.

 

[Anonymous]

I have never used anything but IO. Me likey.

 

[Anonymous]

Do you want half a bucket of Crystal Sea? You can have it... does a pretty good job of de-icing a driveway which is what it will end up doing if I keep it.

 

[Anonymous]

What about sprinkling some on your food?

 

[Anonymous]

After what it did to my tank, no way.

 

[Anonymous]

That bad, huh? 8O

I seem to recall a few other stories similar to yours.

 

[Andrea1]

All I can say is what I am feeling right this minute..." WOW, you all the Best. I love you all........"

I have to admit, I did not read all of the posts because I am tired and my brain can not handle this right now. I will pass all your info over to my husband and he will retain your info and use your knowledge. I must tell you we just purchased a aqua barracuda RO/DI unit. He is reading up on it right now and will post any questions he has. You are all such a blessing to us!
Anyway, we purchased the R/O unit because we will soon have another 90 gallon fish only tank. We have it, just have to set it up.
When we were out today, I asked the LFS people what salt they recommend and they all said Instant Ocean. That is what they use.
Has anyone ever heard of Big Al's? They just opened one here and it is amazing. They had 3 baby black tips in the circular tank. Beautiful I tell you. The prices are higher, but they will match any other store. We however, decided to support a smaller LFS and bought 2 new 1200 maxi jets there b/c they were cheaper there. We will use the rio in our fish only tank.
FYI we were given a wavemaster pro from our marine bio fish guy who set up our tank. He sold us rio's to go along with the wavemaster. The jets made so much noise so we did research. Come to find out, the rios are not compatible with the wavemaster, hence the maxi jets. Money, money, money...Gotsta have it...Gotsta love what you do with it....
Okay enough of my chatting. I appreciate all your advice. My husband and I will read your posts and make a new list of questions.
Again, thanks you so very much.
I love you,
Andrea

 

[ChrisRD]

I've nuked an SPS tank with Crystal Death mix too (with just a 10% water change). Same deal - it became driveway deicer...

Salt before and after the CS episode was IO - never a problem with that. I've used Tropic Marin in the past too - good stuff but harder to find locally. No problems switching from TM to IO and back BTW...

 

[mutley29]

Hi Chris

I know the Aquarium centre in Randallstown carries TM as i bought some from there, i get IO from there now as it was $39 for 200 gal mix

I'm sure i've seen it locally just can't remember where, i try and visit all LFS within 100 mile radius at least once a month

Anton

 

[Anonymous]

ZooKeeper, I have not seen Crystal Sea salt here. I live in Canada, we just got color tv's here! And big white metal boxes for the kitchen, you plug them in and they keep food cold for you! I stocked mine with beer
Thanks for the tip, if I DO see the stuff, I will avoid it :x


Andrea, yes I do know Big Als. They have stores all across Canada, 18 of them. Some suck major buttcookies, some are incredibly amazing. There is one here in Montreal that is excellent Each store has a shark tank. The newest store in Oakville is great, it's like the Florida store. The prices vary from Big Als store to store, since in Canada they are all independantly owned (franchises). Some are cheaper than the local Mom N Pop stores, some are not. All of them match prices. Great place

 

[ZooKeeper1]

Good Idea. Unleashed, nothging worse than warm beer.

FWIW, I bleached most of my sps with a 7% water change. What I was told was that about 10% of people who switch experience this problem. Well I continued with weekly changes, soon everything came back, some looking even better than before (just like I was told), after that the corals that were previously bleached, one by one, began to stn. Over the next few months I lost them all, except for a small green didi frag. I am now back to using IO.