What salt do you use? Why?

[ouling]

I see no merit in asking what is the best salt to use for a reef tank. So this is my question:

What kind of salt do you use with your RO/DI water for a reef tank that have almost no octorals.

Why?

I use Oceanic because it works for me. It is made from evaporated ocean water, which means it has the EXACT ratio of elements found in the ocean (only pure water evaporates; all trace elements are left behind in the salt), so i think it is very suitable for RO/DI water.

I tried Reef Crystals but it alter my Mag and Calcium to 900ppm, and 280ppm, so no more RC for me.

I hear some really fancy brands that is out now like the Tropic Marine Reef Salt or the Red Sea Coral Pro. Both say they have all the trace element you need and maybe a bit more; including something about 3X the borate for your ALK to be stable, and that they're designed to be used with RO/DI water.

But I see no point of having more trace element than that of natural sea water, maybe just enough to compensate the ones that is used with a water change, but i change 30-40% of water every 2-3 weeks. No need of having 3-4X Strontium.

 

[cameron]

IMO, this isn't all that big of a deal. I think as long as you stick with a quality brand, you aren't going to have any real problems. I have never heard of salt that is from a quality brand ever being a significant problem other than someone using too much. To me this is one of those overblown (not saying you are contributing) issues especially with newcomers. I know some salts raise and/or lower this or that, but I haven't seen any proof that any of it was beyond acceptable limits from quality brands. I just tell people get whatever you feel comfortable with or pick up IO/RC since it is used probably more than any other reef aquarium salt successfully and it dissolves quickly.

I have seen people get into really nasty debates about this and I think mostly the reasons are bunk. There have been a couple of OK studies on different salts that come to different conclusions. The one important conclusion I saw was that no salt was perfect and all of them had inconsitencies between buckets bought at different times and purchased in different geographic regions.

 

[dough]

Morton Sea Salt

 

[cameron]

Digging through my previous research here are a few links. The last two are my favorites as they get right to the point.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010303215133/www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1999/mar/features/1/default.asp">http://web.archive.org/web/20010303215133/www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1999/mar/features/1/default.asp</a>

[IMG]http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_3/cav3i3/Salt_Impressions/Salt_Impressions.htm">http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/volume_3/cav3i3/Salt_Impressions/Salt_Impressions.htm</a>

[IMG]http://advancedaquarist.com/issues/sept2004/feature.htm">http://advancedaquarist.com/issues/sept2004/feature.htm</a>

[IMG]http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/3/aafeature/document_view">http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/3/aafeature/document_view</a>

[IMG]http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-03/rs/feature/index.php">http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-03/rs/feature/index.php</a>

[IMG]http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/11/aafeature1"><span style="color: #810081;">http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/11/aafeature1</span></a>

[IMG]http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/12/aafeature1"><span style="color: #0000ff;">http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2005/12/aafeature1</span></a>

 

[suasati]

ouling;44839 wrote:
I tried Reef Crystals but it alter my Mag and Calcium to 900ppm, and 280ppm, so no more RC for me..

You sure it wasn't the other way around?

I have mostly used TMPro, been happy with it, and it is pretty consistent between buckets. I always test Ca and Alk when I open a new bucket.....
I thought of trying SeaChem reef salt and ran in to that whole borate thing, which I was not comfortable dealing with... so now I use TMPro and Reefer's best Premium salt, but in all honesty it really dosen't matter... just stick to the one that you are comfortable.... Infact my 30gal nano gets the water I drain from my 100gal tank, been doing this for over 8months without any issues.... Why wast more salt than you need to right....

 

[cameron]

BTW, the Atlanta Aquarium uses IO if memory serves. He mentioned that during one of the lectures at SWU. Somebody may want to correct that if I am wrong. He did mention they buy it in huge bags and it may have been RC but I am sure it was one of th two.

 

[showtime305]

I think you are right about it being IO. That's what I remember seeing on the bags.

 

[delaneymohr]

Becareful of Reports from the NET. Test your own.

A few months ago, I took advantage of the Drs. Deal of RC for $31.99 and bought 2 Buckets. Prior to this I was buying IO from petsmart on the Internet price match deal as needed.

With the IO I have had fairly consistant batches of salt where my cal was 350, and alk 9. so I always buffered and dose my water while alowing it to cure to bring the Cal up to 420 and alk to 10. I knew how much of each to add and it was relatively consistant. Everything was great..

Then I thought I would get some reef crystals and I wouldn't have to dose my water change water beacause it would have the levels of Cal and alk a Reef system needs. I made the first batch and tested it cal 320 alk 6. WHat? I made 3 more batches each one nearly the same poor results... WTF? So I bust open the other bucket of RC and make 3 batches... All 3 read about 380 cal 12 alk. Better but still not what I have read about on other forums about the greatness of RC.

I made each batch the same using the same measurement practices and verified spec gravity with same refactometer. I make my water to 1.024 All content measurements made after atleast 24 hours of mixing in bucket with powerhead and heater.

I prefer weekly 5 - 10% water changes over dosing, so I want my water to be right BEFORE it goes in the tank. I don't dose my tank.

So my point is as stated at first.. Unless you are running a some sort of dosing system to your tank, I would check every batch of salt for all the usual suspects.

I started this practice after seeing a bleaching of my coraline a couple years ago from a 20% water change with a bad batch of salt with super low alk and cal.

Your Milage may vary but I gave up trusting even LFS for perfect water.
Delaney

 

[suasati]

Has anyone tried hw-Marinemix? Looks like a lot of professional aquaculture facilities use this salt.... I am thinking of trying it out

 

[george]

Cameron;44848 wrote: BTW, the Atlanta Aquarium uses IO if memory serves.

Yup. From Gwen's behind the scenes tour pix from 2006:

 

[kappaknight]

I use Reef Crystals... and I have noticed that my coralline algae have all disappeared from the back glass in recent months. My corals are doing well though so I can't really complain. I guess I should test.

 

[dough]

I have been using hw-Marinemix for about a year. I really can't see a difference to justify the price difference. Dr. Foster was getting rid of the 50 gallon bags last year so I bought several. I am just about out. So I need to decide will try next.

There are so many opinions on salt. I can tell you that I will not go back to IO as I find that it is hard to disolve and there always seems to be some particles in the bottom of the mixing bucket. I found as it gets older that it leaves a residue in the bucket and my pumps. Not a big issue, but I don't get that with hw-Marinemix.

I have heard of people using 50/50 mix of Ocenaic and IO.

I just saw a thread about people switching over to SeaChem's new formulated salt.

Even have seen ZEOvit salt for sale at a nice price of $70 for a 25kg bag!

 

[jetchris]

I have been using instant ocean mixed with kent - but next time i am just gonna use instant ocean -seems to work fine

 

[glxtrix]

IO going strong for 3yrs, I'll never switch. Never had a problem, mixed great and levels are pretty close to where I keep it at after adding new water to system. Actually i dont even let it mix long, I have a big PH mixing salt for prolly an hour and then into the tank it goes. I've also noticed it holds up pretty well over a long period of no water changes. Its a tough topic tho, youre gonna have different results from tank to tank, esp depending on what you house in your tank and how often you do WC's blah blah blah.

 

[ouling]

Well I used RC and tested the calcium in the bucket to be 380, and Oceanic at 420 in the same salinity. But i think the best thing to do is stick with what works well for you. Oceanic is cheap and can be gotten anywhere in emergency, so thats my choice and i'm not going to worry about the high borate with natural organic and 70 trace element fancy salt mixes.

 

[cameron]

Quickly glancing at the study from above Oceanic showed high levels of aluminum, manganese, nickel, selenium and zinc which most are considered toxic. It does report high levels of calcim and magnesium as well. All that said, I bet the salt works just fine with little or no hardship to the fish.

 

[dough]

I guess part of the salt discussions are based upon what you want to keep in the tank. If you're going after SPS, then the debate changes as far was CA AL levels.

In most cases it is each to there own.

 

[caesar]

I was using IO but got tired of dosing to bump up the calc and alk so I switched to Oceanic.

 

[jeep9783]

Salt has always been salt to me, usually red sea or oceanic though

 

[kwl1763]

I agree for the most part salt is salt, there is basically no link to any of the metals in the tests Cameron linked actually do anything harmful at those levels. I use RC but even batch to batch they are all different. I have some great RC batches with 10 dkh and 420 calcim and there was a batch last summer with 6 dkh and 340 calcium. Just test before every water change, I almost always have to make some little adjustment no matter what salt or batch. I just use RC because I have to dose less then IO and the price difference makes up for the adjusting I'd have to do. I use RC because it's the cheapest that is the closest to the values I want generally speaking. I also trust that and IO as being more consistent then others. There have been serious kent and oceanic debacles in the past. I have used HW in the past also. Good stuff (super consistent and really clean and easily dissolved) but not good enough to justify the price difference when you change a full bucket a month like I do. I'm a big consistency guy so I don't/won't switch but I know some who buy whatever's on sale and have no issues whatsoever.

To the original question of a FO tank. I'd use the cheapest period! Get the salinity right and your good! Fish can tolerate very wide ranges of calcium, alk, etc. that we worry about withthe corals so it's a non issue in my book. Stick with cheap. I had a 92 corner setup in the same room as a 135 reef for a couple years before I moved here. I always just used my old reef water and put it in the FO tank during a water change. No reason to spend extra money!