What saltwater do you use? (1 Viewer)

[BrianPlankis]

Hey all,

I wanted to take an informal opinion poll, what saltwater do you use in your reef tanks?

Natural seawater?(collected from where?) I just look at the water in Galveston and think good lord, no way that is going in my tanks....

Instant Ocean, Tropic Marin, Red Sea, etc, etc.

I'm especially interested in what people use for reef tanks where you are doing propogation as I'm going to get back to propogating corals next year(mostly mushrooms to start, but more later). I'm also going to try keeping SPS once my larger tank is up, so very interested in what SPS fraggers are using.(what additives as well....)

B.

 

[BrianPlankis]

Opps...Forgot to include the link to this article which got me thinking about this topic.....

 

[BrianPlankis]

OK, I'm tired!!!!!

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/sept2004/feature.htm

 

[Guest]

I think the whole salt debate has been beaten to death. the article you linked to was in response to Dr. Shimeks ReefKeeping article on salt. to get the whole picture you have to sift through a huge flame war between Dr.'s Shimek and Holmes-Farley, but I think everyone can agree on one thing:

Just about every salt has ppl who think its the BEST and ppl who think its the WORST. but no data not even the data presented by Dr. Shimek, or by this guy who works for a salt company (he wrote that article), can give you a complete picture.

I'd just make sure that whatever salt you get disolves quickly and is stored in a double-seal enviroment (plastic bag in a sealable plastic bucket)

Just my opinion.


In my reef I use Red Sea.

 

[Cakepro]

I've used Kent Marine for the last 3 years....love it. Then I tried Crystal Seas Bioassay...love it. Then (now) I'm using Oceanic...love it. Used one bucket of Red Sea...didn't love it. I don't know why but it's probably more about the bucket than the salt.

If I could get some Crystal Seas that wasn't contaminated by whatever the problem was some months ago, I'd buy that again. I swear it took care of my hair algae problem! (Putting on kevlar vest.)

~ Sherri

 

[incysor]

I'm with Sherri. I started my tanks off with the crystal seas salt and loved it. I'm hoping that they get they're mix problems worked out. I've been using Kent salt in the meantime. It seems fine, although I seem to have much higher levels of phosphates with it than I did when I used the crystal seas. I mainly put it down to having a high bio load, but since I moved and lost most of the fish, I've still got high phosphate levels, and only a clown, a citron goby, and a cleaner goby in 130 gals of water. At this point I'm guessing it's the salt.

 

[BrianPlankis]

Surf,

I've read a bit more and can see the salt topic is getting beaten to death! I was just curious as most LFS and the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago were all using Instant Ocean when I was living there and was curious if things had changed in 4 years. I used IO myself in Chicago until the last 6 months and I switched to another brand...can't remember, but seemed to help my propogation more, not that IO was bad.

Thanks everyone else for their comments. Reefalot, how about you?

B.

 

[Guest]

I use Oceanic. The parameters check pretty good with Ca around 440 but Alk is a little on the low side. The stuff also dissolves in like 3 minutes! Just mix and pour in...incredible.

Oh, I'm using in it my three nanos.

 

[Guest]

IO--suggested by ReefALot. I think he blends his own special mixture. I'm a newbie, and his process was more than I can handle or have a use for right now.

 

[Guest]

I'm with NanoTank, Oceanic has worked best for me so far. I started off using Red Sea and it worked fine, the only thing I didn't like was that it took a long time to dissolve. I switched to kent because it was cheaper. I later found Oceanic and I loved it! Like Nanotank said Alk is a little low, but once you get it in check its fine. Just my 2 cents.

 

[imsuperjp]

I use catalina ocean water from petco for my 10G nano.

 

[AggieBrandon]

I have used red sea, kent, and crystal seas marinemix bioassay. Out of the three I like the crystal seas mix the best. It takes a little longer to dissolve but the levels are great. I also liked Kent salt but decided I would run all my tanks on the same brand.

Brandon

 

[rxonco]

I used the Instant Ocean for quite a while and recently switched to Oceanic and love it. It just seems to dissolve much better than the I.O. did and some of our sponsor stores have some really good prices on it. I've never really been interested in researching the specifics on which salt gives you what alk., Ca, etc... I'm probably alone with this opinion but I think they're all about the same. For me, if it goes into solution quickly, I think it's good salt.

 

[Guest]

I been mixing different salt brand to achieve the parameter in the salt water mix. I found most salt company have trouble keeping their salt mix consistence. I found Kent Marine have very low in Alk. I can depend on them, when they screw up my sps RTN.

 

[Guest]

I notice some tanks that been using Oceanic salt have brown algae which they didn't have that problem before.

 

[AggieBrandon]

Oh yeah BTW if anyone is interested in trying the Crystal Seas Marinemix Bioassay salt I think Tom (tcarlson) has plenty of it. I don't think there is anywhere else around Houston where you can get it.

Brandon