Boxes or Buckets
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I prefer the bucket. I like the lid that I can close and when they're empty, I put supplies inside. I always seem to have acquired enough spare junk between buckets to fill up a new bucket. Then I can just stack them in the corner.
I'm a big guy, and personally don't have a problem maneuvering the whole bucket around, and could easily put it up to the top of my tank if I needed to for whatever reason. But I can understand that smaller people, my girlfriend for example, may have some difficulty moving a full bucket. I guess they'd be SOL and stuck buying smaller quantities.
My reccomendation would be to sell 2 sized bags of 5 gallons of mix and 10 gallons of mix (keep in mind that you'd want 5 gallons of mix at 1.025-1.026, not 1.020), with buckets next to them, and every 150gallons of mix you buy, you get a free bucket. Ideally the packaging would be small enough that you could fit all the bags into a bucket for easy carrying, and of course, it'd be nice if there was a price break at 200gallons or something.
I'm a big guy, and personally don't have a problem maneuvering the whole bucket around, and could easily put it up to the top of my tank if I needed to for whatever reason. But I can understand that smaller people, my girlfriend for example, may have some difficulty moving a full bucket. I guess they'd be SOL and stuck buying smaller quantities.
My reccomendation would be to sell 2 sized bags of 5 gallons of mix and 10 gallons of mix (keep in mind that you'd want 5 gallons of mix at 1.025-1.026, not 1.020), with buckets next to them, and every 150gallons of mix you buy, you get a free bucket. Ideally the packaging would be small enough that you could fit all the bags into a bucket for easy carrying, and of course, it'd be nice if there was a price break at 200gallons or something.
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Introducing multiple sizes of bags significantly increases cost. Not only are you purchasing more sizes, you're setting up another manufacturing line to fill them, creating the box art, printing the box art, and buying multiple sizes of boxes.
Keeping it simple reduces cost, which seems to be the main theme in this thread.
Keeping it simple reduces cost, which seems to be the main theme in this thread.
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Not necessarily. Put the same label on the bag, save for a few letters/numbers and a line in the barcode. You could use the same machines to fill them and seal them if all you did was make the bag "taller" and adjust the timing of operations. You could also use the same boxes, you would just put one bag where you would have put two before. The cost increase would be negligible.
Please let use buy 200g boxes i realy like the 50g bags they are the right amount for mixing trash cans that meany people use i have always wondered why OI will not sell there box's to costermers there so much easyer to use i also live in a small appartemt with a 150g tank and i still mix in a 55g can i realy dont want all thows buckets
Whatever anyone's opinion is, Fosters & Smith sells the 160 gallon bucket and the 200 gallon box of Instant Ocean for the same regular price of $44.99, and they tout the box as follows:
"200 gallon Professional Size Earth-Friendly Boxes."</em>
All they did was get some color printing done to their store use boxes and start selling them to the public. The price break is in the box, so I would guess the 160 gallon bucket costs more to package.
Looks like the box is more green if you go by what they have on their site.
"200 gallon Professional Size Earth-Friendly Boxes."</em>
All they did was get some color printing done to their store use boxes and start selling them to the public. The price break is in the box, so I would guess the 160 gallon bucket costs more to package.
Looks like the box is more green if you go by what they have on their site.
all the plastic has a haff life so box with 5g totel plastic bags ver. 2lb of plastic bucket
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You have to consider though that every time you change what's being run on that line you're paying someone to change and run that line which may mean creating a new job which incurs labor, health, SS, 401k, etc. costs. You also have to offer discounts to retailers to get more SKUs on the shelf and to provide the shelf space for the product. Discounts are a cost and do get factored in to the overall price of the product, as the end user always pays all costs associated with manufacturing and distribution.
It also increases wear on the machine, time between runs, length of runs with more bags to fill, more bags to seal, more machine start and stop time, and a whole new set of operations that can fault.
There are a lot of continuous costs outside of the 'neglible' startup costs. All I'm saying is that most people seem to want a better cost:gallon ratio and keeping it simple produces that result.
I prefer boxes all day long. Anyone who goes through a lot of salt will because the number of buckets gets to be unwieldy. I agree with all the other opinions here, although half the reason I choose the boxes is because I can easily recycle the box / bags. The buckets may be recyclable, but they inevitably get used for something else (cat litter, etc), and then just thrown out.
The fact that Seachem might find most interesting is that I switched salt brands to IO because of the box option. I doubt I'm the only one.
The fact that Seachem might find most interesting is that I switched salt brands to IO because of the box option. I doubt I'm the only one.
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That's what I did when running retail, and that's why I do it for maintenance. I dose to make up for it not being Seachem salt, but I'd rather not have to. The ease of use for me is too important when I'm prepping and finalizing my work days.
I currently have a 65g make up container, so I dump one bag in directly, then scoop the rest. Typically, I use an old salt bucket to hold what I need for bringing it up to 1.026.
Incidentally, I'm about to replace my sump with a 300g tank. I'm partitioning it out so that I have a 100g reservoir for water changes. Because two 50g bags of salt is slightly less than 1.026, I'll be setting my float valve to the point where I *can* just dump in two bags of salt and be close enough to my target. Should make WC's a little bit easier...
Incidentally, I'm about to replace my sump with a 300g tank. I'm partitioning it out so that I have a 100g reservoir for water changes. Because two 50g bags of salt is slightly less than 1.026, I'll be setting my float valve to the point where I *can* just dump in two bags of salt and be close enough to my target. Should make WC's a little bit easier...
Whatever gets me the cheapest price for the most salt. I purchase at least 10 buckets per year, just to get the discount....but it would be nice to have the bulk available. bulk meaning larger that 200 gal. of salt mix. I might even go for a pallet like the GA aquarium does, but I can't seem to find it!
It seems like buckets get expensive after a while....
It seems like buckets get expensive after a while....
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You mean metal and plastic aren't recyclable?
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Landphil! I've never thrown away a bucket, I always have a use for more. I do use a few to transport oil to a local store like Advance Auto to recycle. Nice to have that twisty sealing lid for the messy stuff.
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I do use it more than once. Why would I throw it away? It takes a few oil changes, though, and I only change my Royal Purple every 6-7k miles.
As for what consumes less space, I've never purchased boxes, but have had a significant amount of physics and math, and I'm pretty sure equal amounts of salt take up equal spaces. Maybe you want buckets to be filled to the brim?
As for the offer for the free buckets, if it stands, I'd be happy to take some. I also use them to store cat food and litter (after rinsing well) so it's not sitting in a bag. My mom uses them for cat and dog food.
no need to get so passionate. I prefer a bucket because it is</em> reusable. But I have not gotten to the point where I have more buckets than I need. If I do, I'd switch to boxes, but the resealable top is useful in so many ways. If all the reef companies switched to boxes I'd be pissed because I would like access to a good bucket as a box and a half used bag turns to a rock in about a week.
We do not all have the same situation, and while I could see someone who has been in the hobby for a long time, or someone who's needed other buckets in the past may not need any more, but most of us with smaller tanks or new to the hobby welcome the bucket into out house as it is much more valuable than a hard to carry box that dries the salt out too quick.
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