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Changing salt brands


Toxic enigma

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Toxic enigma

So went to one of the fish stores I shop at to get some filter socks and salt. Just my luck they didn't have the socks I need and they were out of the 50 gallon bags of Instant ocean reef crystals salt that I've been using in my tank, all they had was either the small 10 gallon box or the big 200 gallon that was too much to try to store for my little tanks.        But they did have Red sea coral pro

That I had thought about switching to down the road so after thinking it over a bit I ended up grabbing a bucket. So looks like I'll be switching over to the Red sea salt.

      The thing that worries me a bit is in one of my tanks I have sps corals, and the tank seems to have balanced out aroun 6 dkh ( tried to get that to 7 dkh but no luck) and the Red sea is almot twice that. 

     I do have about half a bag of reef crystals left, so I was thinking of using part Red sea and part reef crystals to mix up water when I do water changes. Basically since 5 gallons uses about 2.5 cups of salt to get a specific gravity of .025 I would mix a few batches with .5 cup Red sea and 2 cups reef crystals. After a few waterchanges I'll use 1 cop Red sea and 1.5 for the next few and so forth, till I'm only using Red sea. During the switch I'll shut my kalkwasser drip off, and test calcium, magnesium and alk before and after waterchanges and atleast two more times a week. Does this sound like a good plan or is there a better way to make the switch?

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Coral Pro mixes a little different than RC.  IDK, you might have to mix them separately. :unsure:

 

Instead of weekly 10% water changes, maybe you could change 5% twice a week to reduce the sudden spikes.

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Toxic enigma

By "mixes differently" do you mean like the amount needed to reach my target salinity will be different, or that they won't dissolve the same and one could cause the other to not dissolve fully? 

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Coral pro has specific mixing instructions.

 

Reef Crystal's is put in water with pump and heater.

 

 

Rscp is add salt to water, mix it. After 2hrs add heater and pump. Salt should not be mixed for more than 4hrs and stored for no more than a week.

 

I would do small water changes so that corals can acclimate to the new parameters as rscp's alk is very high and a jump from 6/7 dkh to 10+ dkh can cause significant issues.

 

My experience with the switch from RC to RSCP with 10% waterchanges: a slow but gradual increase in alk over a few months.

My alk went from 9dkh to 12.5 in 3 mnths.

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Frag Factory

I use Red Sea CP and I've treated it no different than any other salt.

 

I don't see how mixing it then heating it helps. We are disolving salt in water. Not baking a cake.

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Toxic enigma

Okay so revised battle plan. Since increasing the amount of the new salt while decreasing the old has potential to cause rather than solve problems. I have two tanks so I'm thinking switch them over one at a time.

     Tank one is a 29 gallon with 10 gallon sump ( holds about 6 gallons) mixed reef with sps, lps and soft coral. Instead of the weekly 5 gallon waterchanges I usually do I do smaller 2 gallon waterchanges three days apart using the new salt. During this time I take kalkwasser drip offline and monitor levels ( calcium, alkalinity, magnesium). Once levels balance out at the new parameters and stay in the same range for I can go back to normal schedule and adjust kalkwasser dosing for the tanks needs.

      Tank two is 14 gallon with hang on back filter/skimmer, soft and lps only. This tank only get 2-3 gallons every other week and is going to be upgraded to a 29 in a few weeks, I'll keep using reef crystals in that one for now. When the move to the bigger tank happens filter, rock and sand will all move, and dry rock (reef saver) and sand will be added to the established rock and sand. The question here is do I use reef crystals when setting the new one up for the switch then switch it over to the new salt after a few weeks of monitoring for any fluctuations or unlikely mini cycle. Or would it be better to kill two birds and set up the new tank with the Red sea salt right off the bat then monitor for any issues that might arise?

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It's quite possible that you are overthinking it.  Every time you buy a new coral, you are putting it in saltwater that might have completely different parameters than what it was in.  That said, some corals are more tolerant to sudden increases in alkalinity than others.

 

Lots of people use RSCP.  I assume that they make no effort to acclimate new corals to the higher alkalinity.  Although, IDK, maybe they should.  Personally, I feel the RSCP is a little extreme.  I guess I just prefer something with more typical levels.

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I mix RSCP for days at a time like other salt. Been doing it for years like that. I think people over think reefing in general! Like help my clownfish is swimming upside down. How can anyone help you with that. Help my tank is crashing! Well change a bunch of water is all you can do. Anyways I would use up the r ef crystals and then switch to a few smaller water changes of RSCP. 

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4 hours ago, Clown79 said:

Coral pro has specific mixing instructions.

 

Reef Crystal's is put in water with pump and heater.

 

 

Rscp is add salt to water, mix it. After 2hrs add heater and pump. Salt should not be mixed for more than 4hrs and stored for no more than a week.

 

I would do small water changes so that corals can acclimate to the new parameters as rscp's alk is very high and a jump from 6/7 dkh to 10+ dkh can cause significant issues.

 

My experience with the switch from RC to RSCP with 10% waterchanges: a slow but gradual increase in alk over a few months.

My alk went from 9dkh to 12.5 in 3 mnths.

 

If your Alk climbs that much with 5% water changes, you must not be consuming much Alk in between. I do 20% water changes and my alk stays at 8.4? I’ve never measured how much it climbs after the water change, that reading is a week after a water change.

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Not much differance in alk.. you will be fine..  if you want your alk higher than 6 consider dosing . It got to a point on my little cube where it was cheaper to dose than do huge water changes , plus dosing keeps my tank more stable. Now I am not dropping alk all week only to slam it back up with a big w.c.

salt.jpg

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I agree with Weikel.  Not sure what SPS you have but if they are acros you are heading for some heartache if you go switching salts and making Alk unstable.  You have discovered though, as I did, that low Alk works a lot better than high alk when it comes to SPS.  They will do better and grow faster if you can keep it around 7 but 6 won't kill.  Jumping from 6 to 7 will probably be ok as well but if you switch to coral pro you will most likely spike Alk too high and do damage. 

 

I really dislike coral pro, it's damn dangerous for some tanks.  You can use it like dosing to keep params stable but it's hard to know how much to use and how often, dosing is a lot easier to calculate using  calculators like this one:  http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

 

Looking at recent pictures of your tank I'm a bit surprised Alk usage is so high.  Are you positive you're measuring correctly?

 

Good luck, make changes slowly.   :)

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8 hours ago, HarryPotter said:

 

If your Alk climbs that much with 5% water changes, you must not be consuming much Alk in between. I do 20% water changes and my alk stays at 8.4? I’ve never measured how much it climbs after the water change, that reading is a week after a water change.

I have gone through this at least 100 times over various threads.

 

The salt mixed at 12.5 dkh, over months of doing waterchanges, eventually your tanks alk level will be the same as what the salt mixes at.

 

And that's exactly what happened. After doing my weekly waterchanges which eventually was more than 10%, my tanks alk changed over the span of months.

 

My alk dropped daily, tank was full of sps and lps. 

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Toxic enigma
13 hours ago, seabass said:

It's quite possible that you are overthinking it.  Every time you buy a new coral, you are putting it in saltwater that might have completely different parameters than what it was in.  That said, some corals are more tolerant to sudden increases in alkalinity than others.

 

Lots of people use RSCP.  I assume that they make no effort to acclimate new corals to the higher alkalinity.  Although, IDK, maybe they should.  Personally, I feel the RSCP is a little extreme.  I guess I just prefer something with more typical levels.

If I'm reading this right it's probably fine if I just use up the rest of the reef crystals, then when I go to move everything from the smaller ( 14 gallon) tank to the bigger one it should be fine to set it up with the Red sea salt. 

 

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Toxic enigma
8 hours ago, markalot said:

I agree with Weikel.  Not sure what SPS you have but if they are acros you are heading for some heartache if you go switching salts and making Alk unstable.  You have discovered though, as I did, that low Alk works a lot better than high alk when it comes to SPS.  They will do better and grow faster if you can keep it around 7 but 6 won't kill.  Jumping from 6 to 7 will probably be ok as well but if you switch to coral pro you will most likely spike Alk too high and do damage. 

 

I really dislike coral pro, it's damn dangerous for some tanks.  You can use it like dosing to keep params stable but it's hard to know how much to use and how often, dosing is a lot easier to calculate using  calculators like this one:  http://reef.diesyst.com/chemcalc/chemcalc.html

 

Looking at recent pictures of your tank I'm a bit surprised Alk usage is so high.  Are you positive you're measuring correctly?

 

Good luck, make changes slowly.   🙂

Which tank? I do have a few acros in the 29 along with branching and plating montis along with birdsnest.           I'm aware that there is a risk hence the thread. I want to make sure I've got a good plan together before making any changes.  

    The 14 I'm not too worried about as that is just soft and lps corals. They will no doubt 

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I think that'd probably be alright.  I mean, if you can, you want to avoid unnecessary swings (even with soft coral, although they may be more tolerant).

 

I'm often guilty of over thinking things too.  But there are any number of ways to do this, that should come out alright.  But it makes sense to have a plan.  Good luck.

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On 8/13/2018 at 4:00 AM, Frag Factory said:

Can you not just order some more Reef Crystals online if you are this concerned?

This^.

 

Changing salts with similar parameters isn't an issue but when there is a large difference there may or may not be a problem to occur 

 

Why not just order salt? 

 

If you are in the US there are so many stores to order from and with reasonable prices.

 

I'm in Canada so we have very limited options in our lfs. Basically Reed Crystal's and IO. I like neither brand. I'm stuck ordering my salt and paying $30 to ship it.

 

In the end it's been worth it.

 

 

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I used to use Instant Ocean.  I switched to RS Coral Pro for 1 bucket and hated the way it mixed up.  I never saw alk in the range as the chart above suggests.  It was always really really low.  1 bucket of that was more than enough frustration.

I switched to Reef Crystals and had no issues at all.   I'm starting a new 180g reef.  I'll be using Reef Crystals again.

 

Amazon!!  Several different ways to buy it from that site. 

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11 minutes ago, Rcpilot said:

 

Amazon!!  Several different ways to buy it from that site.  

Agreed.  I am in an area where I even get same day delivery......Amazon gets a lot of my money.

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2 minutes ago, Frag Factory said:

Buy from aquarium stores online guys, it's the same price and it keeps the money in the hobby.

Amazon is my online aquarium store 😉  And I get 5% back on my Amazon credit card.  I agree with you in general though.  I would go one step farther and say "buy local if possible".  Which once again for me....is Amazon since I am in Seattle.  Haha.

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2 hours ago, Rcpilot said:

I used to use Instant Ocean.  I switched to RS Coral Pro for 1 bucket and hated the way it mixed up.  I never saw alk in the range as the chart above suggests.  It was always really really low.  1 bucket of that was more than enough frustration.

I switched to Reef Crystals and had no issues at all.   I'm starting a new 180g reef.  I'll be using Reef Crystals again.

 

Amazon!!  Several different ways to buy it from that site. 

A few ppl have gotten low to average alk eith rscp but definitely the more common is very high numbers.

 

Not sure why that happens.

2 hours ago, Frag Factory said:

Buy from aquarium stores online guys, it's the same price and it keeps the money in the hobby.

I always buy this way but Amazon.ca is ridiculously expensive for Reef supplies.

 

It's about 3-4 times the price of anywhere else.

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28 minutes ago, Clown79 said:

A few ppl have gotten low to average alk eith rscp but definitely the more common is very high numbers.

 

Not sure why that happens.

I always buy this way but Amazon.ca is ridiculously expensive for Reef supplies.

 

It's about 3-4 times the price of anywhere else.

 

No doubt. Amazon Canada is pretty useless for marine supplies, sometimes they will have the odd bucket of salt or such, but their selection is just poor and not worth it, I don't even consider Amazon when ordering fish supplies.

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Toxic enigma

I try not to order stuff online as much as possible. I've got some pretty good lfs in my area so I like to support them ( plus it gives me a excuse to go look at corals, lol).

     So far I've done two waterchanges with the coral pro and like it alot better than reef crystals. It dissolves alot faster, I can have it ready in an hour or two rather than having to get it mixing the night before or early in the morning.

      Interestingly my calcium dropped from 480 to 380, magnesium went from 1350 to 1250 and nitrate that was 6-7 is suddenly now 3-4 but alkalinity went from 6 to 7.5.

        Also interesting ( but possibly unrelated) is that my BTA that for about a month now resided in a hard to see crevice on the back of the rock has now moved to a spot on the front, and some of my acros that barely ever had polyps out are starting to.

      

   

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