Will IO be ok for lps corals

[lefty99]

My local saltwater fish store sells premixed reef crystal for 1.19 a gallon but I already bought a bag of IO from petco. I am just starting my cycle but am planning on doing lps corals. My question is will the lps thrive with just the IO mix or would I be better off starting out with reef crystal mix.

[itzju]

IO is perfectly fine to begin your tank with. The only difference with IO and RC is that RC has elevated levels of cal/alk.

 

If you want to increase your params in the future you can always start dosing Cal/Alk

[bob115]

How much IO do you have? Depending on how long it's going to take you to go through it, you could just run the cycle and the beginning stages with IO and then when that starts getting low phase out the IO and ease into reef crystals (or whatever you salt of choice may be). IO isn't going to hurt anything during the cycle and from what I hear is ok for corals that don't calcify quickly (or few that do).

 

Also, if you bought IO mix, but are interested in buying premixed reef crystals what is your water source? I can't recommend enough you start with, and use, RO/DI (or distilled) for all your water needs. Its going to save you a very large headache later down the line when you don't have to fight algae at every turn.

 

Edited to add "enough" to the RO/DI comment since I'm dumb and forgot it.

[lefty99]

I have a 28 bow front and I bought enough IO to make 50 gal. I guess if reef crystal is more beneficial then I rather just go with that. I am using ro/di water. Went to buy some ro/di water from a saltwater fish store and the owner gave me a tour of his shop. He showed me his ro/dI filters that produce the water that I was buying and also the tub where he has his premixed reef crystal water being mixed. Is it OK to mix salt. I haven't actually mix the water and salt yet. If its ok to mix salt then I might just exchange the IO bag for a smaller bag

[bob115]

Well a 50 gallon bag is going to be enough to fill it up and a couple big water changes, which if you're starting the cycle is going to be inevitable. So, realistically (and economically) I'd just use the IO you have now for your cycle since its cheaper. If you run out before the cycle is over--and you want to use reef crystals--just switch. Calc/alk swings aren't going to hurt the cycle much if at all. If you have livestock, especially inverts like coral, and you want to switch, just mix up a few half/half batches of IO and your salt of choice to ease the tank into the new parameters more slowly. And yes, its ok to mix salts, you'll just get parameters somewhere in between the two mixes based on what ratio you mixed.

 

As to whether or not to use reef crystals? Well, it depends. Are you going to be keeping a lot of calcifying corals and the like? Then it's probably worth using a salt with increased Calc/alk levels. Whatever you do though, use the salt that matches the parameters you want to keep.

[lefty99]

Thanks for the information. Honestly right now I'm not sure what im going to keep most likely going to end up with zoa and lps

[bob115]

Don't worry, you've got time to decide. Cycles take a while. I'd definitely check the levels of calc/alk/mag on the different salt mixes, as that's where most of your variance is going to come into play. For now, even after the cycle, its probably not going to be that big of a deal. Its just a bit more touchy switching down the line (if that is indeed what you decide to do).

[CrazyEyes]

FWIW, some of the nicest full blown SPS tanks I've ever seen in my life have been running regular IO since they got started. I use IO in all my tanks, I recommend IO to everyone.