Salt

I am changing salts from oceanic. Thanks to Seano Hermano's great thread (http://www.3reef.com/forums/salt/best-brand-salt-mix-94043-7.html#post982953) I wanted to go with Instant Oceans Reef chrystals but verry few people in the DFW market carry it. I went to 14 stores and found one store that carrys the 160 gallon bucket. Most of the stores in DFW are using Seachem's Reef Salt.

So please help me decide between the two. Is one way better than the other. Is there better out their withing the same price range?

 

I use Red Sea Pro and great good results with it....Mg is 1250+ Ca 1s 450+ Kh is 8.2

 

I use Oceanic and love it, not sure why you're switching...but that's what I use!

 

haha That's funny. I was going to refer you to my thread.

After all that I am still not sure.: While 1/3 of the people liked it, over 1/3 didn't. I think I'll probably go with RC anyways..

 

Or maybe the Red Sea Coral Pro. Those params Pierce just listed are great. Does she dose, or is that w/o dosing?

 

Brightwell salt has perfect levels and mixes up in only a few minutes.

have you considered having some shipped in? usually large online places like marine depot will have real big sales on salt every couple of months

 

I've been using Reef Crystals for about 10 years now. Don't know if it's the best salt, and honestly I couldn't care less if some other brand is "supposed" to be better. But I have had good results with it, so I'm not changing. You know: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Everybody should use whatever they are comfortable with, period. I'm not pushing for Reef Crystals, but felt like posting some parameters for it, so you can decide for yourself if you want to use it.

Just mixed some up on Monday 9-27-10 and here is what it actually tested at:
Alkalinity: 10dKH
Magnesium: 1340ppm
Calcium: 500ppm
Salinity: 1.026
Temp: 78F
Phosphate: 0ppm
Nitrates: 0ppm

Alkalinity was right where I like it (10-11 dKH), but Magnesium was a little low (prefer 1400-1450ppm) and Calcium was a touch high (prefer 440-460ppm). I'll just let the Calcium go down on it's own, but I did dose some Magnesium to raise it to 1420ppm before adding it to my 20g Quarantine tank as that matched the level in the QT.

 

The only problem with Reef Crystals is it isn't consistent, it can vary from bucket to bucket allot. But I look at it this way, if the Shedd Aquarium, one of the top aquariums in the world uses both Instant Ocean and Reef Crystals, then its the salt that I am going to use.

I will bet if you check with Foster and smith you will get it cheaper than what you going to pay in the store, even with their shipping which is only 8.99 no matter how any you order.

 

I checked it out. That is a good deal. Everyone else wants to charge 20 + $ for extra shipping for overweight items.

 

Thanks for the parameter check, Reeron.