Me too, but apparently I can buy this AF stuff on Amazon.ca, and as much as I like to support my LFS, he doesn't want to carry RBS, and H2Ocean is driving me nuts with the IO-style elevated alk. Besides, I've been using H2Ocean for 5 or 6 years now, and I think it's time for change - I'm getting the itch.

It's not that he doesn't want to carry it. It's just that there is very little demand :)

That's why he doesn't want to carry it. :lol:

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I got my pail of salt shipped to the wrong apartment number :sad: Not the best time of the year to do that but luckily, the resident of the apartment is kind enough to receive a 22kg bucket on my behalf and let me know when I can pick it up. :redface:

I'm jealous. I'm going to do some big water changes to get rid of my H2Ocean. Haha

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I threw away half a bucket of reefer's best salt while changing home since I didn't feel like carrying it down and then up the stairs. You can do the same if you want :biggrin:

Myself and others in the Edmonton area have all quit using rbs for the last year. At $140 a box and extremely inconsistent alk levels it was a waste of money

While I liked it when I used it, alk was always dead on. I also wouldn't pay $140/box -lol

Honestly though, other than higher alk, I find no real difference now that I'm using IO again. Other than lower Ca, but that's easy enough to fix.

I also switched to IO. Mixes fine and didn't see any issue when doing a water change.
I have had and seen boxes of rbs with alk from 5dkh to 11 dkh.
I can't just justify the price if I have to change params

:lol: I'm too cheap for that. If I'm going to "get rid" of some salt, I may as well get rid of it into the tank. :D

So what you're saying is that there's no similarities. :lol:

No kidding!!! I use muriatic acid to lower the alkalinity in H2Ocean before using it, but I have to mix a few hours for pH to rise back up.

No, I'm saying salt is salt. I add 50 cents of Ca to make a $40 bucket the same as a $140 box and my alk is 9 instead of 8. If I were to really care about alk, another few cents of HCL would take care of that too. But I'm not worried about alk, so save 100 bucks every 6 weeks. Although now that you mention it, saving $866/yr really makes them very different.

That's my approach too. Everytime I tried a more expensive salt of any kind I found that I still needed to test params and occasionally adjust. If I end up doing that anyhow then I might as well go with the least cost option. The amount of Ca and Alk or even Mg I'd dose to get to targets is WAY less than the upcost of a different salt.

I dunno maybe that's just weird but I never noticed a difference in the tank using a more expensive salt. (Except when I got complacent and stopped testing incoming salt and got burned by a bad batch. And there just isn't a single salt brand that is immune to that!!)

I used to be in the same boat as you guys. There are lots of old posts with me saying IO + a couple supplements = WIN. Then I tried H2Ocean and never looked back (my SPS improved). Now, H2Ocean has much higher alkalinity than it used to, so I'm adding muriatic acid to it and everything else tests out fine. If you're not running SPS-dominant, I don't think there is much difference between one salt and another.

Except I run SPS dominant and still feel like salt is salt. I used RBS for 2 years in the 180, then IO for the next 2. No difference. Perhaps something else changed for you at the time you changed salt?

Regardless, the only salt I can buy is IO, so that's what I use.

I switched back and forth a few times to convince myself it was the salt because I didn't believe it.

Well, now you can buy Aquaforest on Amazon! *mind blown* :lol:

Still more than I spend on IO, which I'm happy with. Can't justify more money for no gain.

How do you know that? This stuff could be the next reefing miracle! :razz:

I've been doing this long enough to know that there are no miracles. Just stability. :)

There are miracles everywhere...take Radiums for example. ;)

Just lights. I prefer them, many don't. Look at you, you chose an inferior light and you're happy :)

Pff. I'd have Radiums too if I could justify the COST to run them. :lol: You pick lights over salt, I pick salt over lights. :)

T5 8 bulb vs 400w MH. About the same cost. Except my bulbs are cheaper :)

Oddly enough, the most expensive lights I ran were my LED -lol

I have 6 bulbs. 6x39w or 2x250w + 2×39w. Big difference.

About $4/mo??

0.26 cents/day, according to BC Hydro. Maybe power is more there?

Plus ac more days of the year.

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Isn't that a "Pro"? :) Anyway, quit hijacking my thread. Talking about probiotics here.

This is MY thread and there are 4 pages of crap salt and light talk in it now. Thanks Brad.

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You should keep your threads cleaner then. This is pretty hard to read.

All I've got from this so far - "Unfortunately, the quality of the components translates into highly hygroscopic and risk petrifaction salt. According to my eye, salt AF showed the smallest clarity of all respondents salt"

:pop2:

All junk aside I would love to lmao how this works for everyone


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Ya and IO is good for storage and nothing else.

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Thanks Numbers! I was just about to whip out my calculator :lol:

You guys still do water changes? :)

Aquaforest Reef Salt 22-Kilogram Bucket
by Aquaforest
Be the first to review this item
Price: CDN$ 69.90 Free Shipping for Prime Members


I am gonna give it a try, the price seems very reasonable.
Anyone else using it can report back?

Edit:
wait, what?
http://i65.tinypic.com/2d93d3b.png

Im waiting for the 25kg box to come in stock. $10 cheaper than the 22kg bucket

What exactly are the differences between soft coral version VS lps/sps version VS the Probiotic ??

Check out the link , it has some more detailed info on all of their products.
http://aquaforest.eu/en/product-category/sole-morskie/

Oh I didn't notice that. Good catch.