which salt

[heron]

Which salt is the best? Is Red Sea a good one? Many thanks:)

[lgreen]

warning: this is a third rail of reefing, and you may be sorry for opening this box.

 

In my opinion I like instant ocean the best. That is the only salt I will ever use.

 

Other good brands include tropic marin, bio-sea marine, red sea, and coralife.

 

Just keep in mind different salts have different levels of calcium, alk, and what not. Some of the popular salts in my opinion are a little to high in certain things for just your average reef, and others are lacking.

 

What you are keeping may help you determine what salt is best too. Heavily stocked reef tanks with large amounts of sps or lps corals are going to be much more demanding on calcium and alk than other tanks, so you may want to consider a salt higher in caclium such as oceanic, tropic marin, or bio-sea. Just for your average marginally stocked reef tank though, I think instant ocean is just right.

 

try a search for "best salt"

 

there are about 5-10 threads that go on for pages talking about which is best.

[Caesar777]

Yeah... MANY threads on the topic, and LOTS of different opinions on it. Many say that Instant Ocean is crap--no offense, lgreen --but I haven't used it. But Oceanix has caused problems for people, and some have been fine.... There's SO much variance in the whole issue, heh. For most people, it's trial-and-error, I think.

[bobioden]

I agree with Instant Ocean being Crap. But it all depends on what you are keeping in your tank. For most who keep zoos, shrooms, softies and LPS it is fine. But for SPS and Clams is dosen't cut it. You need to add too many additives like Kent Liquid Calcium and Kent Magnesium to maintain any kind of levels. Both products are expensive in the long run. I prefer Oceanic. It is high in CA which I like and although it is low in ALK, adding Baking Soda is easy and very cheap to get to the levels I like.

 

Bob

[steelhealr]

I'm with Bobioden. I have Oceanic. It IS high in Ca2+ and low in alk...I have to use buffer. I tried Tropic Marin and saw no difference in my tank. Here are some commonly posted remarks on salts:

1) Instant Ocean and Coralife had higher heavy metals in one study. The same study praised Marine Biosea

2) Oceanic is fast dissolving, high in Ca2+, low in alk

3) Tropic Marin was/is a hot salt now, but rumors are spreading about it fostering the growth of hair algae. Comes in a cardboard box (yuck)

4) Catalina Bottled SW, supposed to be 'bottled ocean water', clean and ready to go BUT...some have been reporting nitrate levels of up to 10 ppm

 

Bottomline....none is perfect and you'll get mixed reports from everybody. My recommendation.....read more, pick one, go with it and see how your tank does. If you go SPS, research again for magnesium and calcicum content. SH

[lgreen]

Originally posted by Caesar777

There's SO much variance in the whole issue, heh. For most people, it's trial-and-error, I think.

 

Well said. There really is no perfect or best salt. All seem to have their pro's and con's and may need a little fine tuning. Even the chemistry of your source water can effect the ultimate chemistry of the salt. You really just have to try something, and if it works good, stick with it.

[natejonesis]

Hey,

 

This is a little off topic, but if you have a small tank you could just buy ocean water in 5 gallon boxes. Pretty much the closest you can get to your coral's preferred habitat. There are currently two brands that I know of .... the one I use is Catalina Real Ocean Water. All I have to do is evaporation topoff and all the other parameters fall into place for themselves. Of course if you have a bigger tank then the cost may be prohibitive.

 

Nate.

[Caesar777]

Even that has its flaws, though. (Nitrates, other chemicals--not sure how it compares to salt mixes, though, which is key.)

[Ultimate Reef]

I am currently using Tropic Marin Pro Reef after using IO for many years. It is expensive but I always had to buffer IO with MG and CA before water chnges. Tropic Marin Pro Reef comes in buckets unlike the smaller size that comes in a box.

[heron]

Many thanks for all your comments. Has anyone ever used bottled mineral water (evian) for making up salt water. I am finding it hard to obtain good quality RO water and do not want to install an RO unit at home. Evian has NO3 level of 3.8. I have found another water from scotland which has NO3 of less than 1ppm.

[steelhealr]

What about phosphate? That is probably even more 'evil' than nitrate. I wouldn't do it if you want to avoid future headaches. SH