First Time Mixing Salt Success

For the past year when I did water changes I usually bought ready made saltwater from my LFS.

I have had a RO/DI system for a while but only used it for top off. I got a free bag of instant ocean salt for buying x amount of coral at WWC. It was instant ocean and I made my first salt mix. I followed the directiosn to the letter but still got low salinity and I ended up having to to dose a ton of calcium spread out over a few days to get it up to where it shoudl've been. So I decided I was going to try Oceanic since it has HIgh Calcium and High Magnesium.

Took 3 darn weeks to get here cause my LFS either had it on back order ordered the wrong salt etc.

Finally it gets here I got my 12 gallons of water ready and put in 6 and a half cups of salt in it 1/2 cup more than I neede but my salinity was at 1.21 so I needed to get it up.

Let me say this stuff dissolves quick with IO it took me like a hour or so to get it totally dissolved within 15 minutes of being in my bucket with a oralia and maxi churning it it was crystal clear.

So I do my water change and my calcium is up to 450-to 500 ppm I have no idea which cause i accidentally added 2 drops of the testing solution at once. PH was at 8.3 the best I have ever had it honestly always hovered round 8.1 and 8.2. and alkalinity was at 1.7-8 can't tell the damn colors are too similar.

Over all I love this salt.

 

i use reef crystals salt mix. for a 1.023 salinity , its a little less than 2 cups per 5 gallons. ive had alot of good luck with this

 

wow really on the oceanic it is like half a cup per gallon so I would have to use 3 cups for 6 hmmm... I might have to experiment.