Marie,

Thank you for your cander, it’s good to see that it’s all about practicality. It’s all about, what makes it convenient to the hobbyist!

Therefore, your decision is more about price and not about product. If the price were more in line, would you try other salt brands? In addition, if you were to try other salt brands, which would, they be?

If I knew were to track down all of the components (without buying 500+ pounds of the stuff) ...... I'd make my own salt.

http://www.marinebreeder.org/phpbb/v...hp?f=233&t=271

Cheers,
Vic

Probably not. After all, as I have said earlier, I have been using IO with no problems for 15 yrs and to be honest I'm not sure what "better" results I could get from a different brand of salt.

I'm in the same boat as Marie having used IO since the early 90s. I've tried others, and haven't noticed any improvement in any organisms, so I always go back, plus as Marie said it's still cheaper to buffer the IO than buy premium salt. The only salt that calls my name these days is D-D H2Ocean simply because it is natural seasalt. That is my only draw to it. I am considered trying it out, but I have 1 1/2 buckets of IO to use up right now.

I just moved to this area, and around here D-D is $85 and IO is $65, so the price is closer than BC where D-D $80 and IO is $40-45. Both IO and D-D make similar amounts of mixed product seawater. I know I definitely have a hard time paying $65 for IO!! :eek: So I guess that's also a draw to D-D. ;)

Matt time flies when you are working and enjoying yourself - but not that fast.

The salt has actually only been in Canada for about 12 months and in many shops less than 10 months so an even better result to be so high in the poll after such a short time.

I must say that over here in the UK there are not so many people that would use a non reef salt, (pro salt), if they were serious reef keepers and they had loyalty to the Instant Ocean brand they would be using Reef crystals as the pro salt from the same company or Instant Ocean for a fish only tank.

The UK poll only shows 5.75% using Instant Ocean compared with 15.88% using Reef Crystals and this trend is reflectected in the other brands manufacturing both a fish salt and a reef salt.

After 12 months in the UK market H2Ocean is coming in at 36.5% which is an unbelievable result for the salt.

We hope that a few more people over there can get easy access to the product to see how good the results are from their corals.

Stuart

io
 

io is on sale for 38 bucks at petsmart right now

We use IO with RO. With prety good results.

Oops...
 

Well, I fudged my vote... I had intended on starting my tank with the H2Ocean Pro, but got antsy... and paid 100 bucks for a bucket of IO in Prince Albert. Funny how just over an hour away in Saskatoon (as Myka stated) that same bucket of IO is only 65 bucks... I should have had a bucket of H2Ocean Pro shipped, would have worked out to the same amount as my bucket of IO.

That said, my next bucket will be the D-D product, since my 25% weekly water change amounts to 2 1/2 gallons and I like the higher calcium and mag that it seems to offer... I have yet to start adjusting these with my IO (no livestock yet) but I can already see issues forming with dosing in a small tank, if the tank is a heavy user of calcium and magnesium.

Pretty much the same reason here. But I agree with most, if you've been using IO for years, probably no good reason to change. I started this hobby around 1991, and really the only decent salt was IO. I used it, everyone I knew used it, including all the tanks I admired. By the time I learned how to grow SPS, I was in the trend of using IO (switching to Kent every now and then for higher Ca), and I got great results. Most of the longer term members here can recall the stupid growth I got, as well as many of the other SPS guys (Jamie, Marc, Shao, etc). Most used IO and got tremendous growth. Heck, the whole magnesium thing didn't even come about until the last few years. I never supplemented anything in my make up water, doing monthly 15% water changes. My Ca reactor would quickly balance out any defecencies, and my Ca always tested over 400, alk over 9, and Mg was just never a concern.
Based on this experience, if I were not using RBZ to support my attempt at the Zeovit method, I would use IO and not even consider switching.

because there is no such thing.. salt levels are a personal choice.. find one that is exactly NSW values for a reasonable price and I will buy it. do you know of a salt off hand that is consistantly
380Ca, 1380Mg, 11Dkh alk, for the main levels and then has all the other naturaly orcurring levels in the other traces?

I don't so I buy one that is the closest with the minimal amount of woth.. which is IO . I leave the Ca alone as it is usaly 380. I prefure a higher alk so I bump it up to 12 Dkh and then I make sure the Mg is proper.

all the pro reefs usaly have Ca levels that are to high and have you ever tried picking Ca particles out of salt mix.. its not fun...:wink:

also the issue is that all the driferent brands are some ones opinion of what they feel the salt should be alot of them are not even based on real oceans but rather on the latest chemical level trends in the hobby.

Steve

The problem with any "perfectly balanced, proper levels salt" is that as soon as you add it to your tank, it changes. If you have a healthy tank with corals that are growing at a constant rate, without supplementation, you'll have noticeably less everything in 24 hours. So, you have to supplement the tank regardless, whether that's with 2 part mixes, kalk reactors, Ca reactors, etc, you must replace what the corals consume. Water changes alone will not suffice in a fully stocked reef.
So if I have to monitor and maintain levels in the tank, I'm not so concerned with the levels of the 10 or 15 % new water I add, it will adjust with my maintenance routine.

for those that buys IO salt, as stated by leducreef, it's on sale at Petsmart. Here is an additional $5 off $25 coupon.

http://petsmart-mail.com/P/v3/Coupon...=1007&ci=50078

salt brand
 

tony? did you think of adding bio sea salt or marine environment salt to your list.just a thought.dan

I'm curious about these 2 part salt mixes... why do they come as 2 parts? Are they liquid?

Yup, totally agree. The amount of chemically "perfect" salt you add with water changes first gets dilluted with the remaining old water & then gets depleted by the corals, clams & coraline algae that suck it up quickly in a growing reef tank.

Perhaps with a nano tank & weekly water changes, I could justify the added expense of the really "good" salts, but with just under 500 gallons of sw in the display & sump tanks, that is just not feasible.

Besides, my friend Marie (as I think I mentioned before) uses IO & probably has the fastest coral growth rates of anyone I know.

Wow $100 for a pail of IO. Wish we could get it out there for less. $39 all the time.

When adjusting a non balanced salt you do have to take into account ionic balances though. A balanced salt will have the correct chloride/sodium/sulphate ions. Adjusting a non balanced salt might throw the ionic balance out of wack. Short term not a problem but if using two part additives long term you could shift ionic values out of desirable ranges.
Using a balanced salt will help bring ionic levels back into line via regular water changes.

And which salts are ballanced?

Hiya
Any salt that when mixed delivers levels at or close to NSW. IO for instance needs adjusting so that means adding chlorides,sodium and Sulphates from the bucket.
So we mix up our salt to 1.025, check the levels and find we are low. We then add Calcium chloride,Sodium Bicarb/carbonate and Mag Chloride/Sulphate to the mix. Chlorides then get bumped up thus increasing salinity, sulphates and sodium(due to the Sodium Bicarb) also increases.
Now add to that a two part additive regime and one could find those ionic levels slowly creeping up over time.
As for a balanced salt then H20 pretty much hits the spot with regards to NSW levels out of the bucket.
Ive never been a fan of two part dosing due to the fact that without water changes chlorides, sodium etc can become elevated over time. How long might it take? I couldnt tell you but seeing as you cant tell or test then its pretty much a lottery imo.
The chlorides used in H20 are slightly lower, this allows for the addition of chlorides such as Magnesium Chloride or Calcium chloride if you choose to use as a two part method for your Ca/Alk regime.

Hi peeps

I realise that its been a while but thought you all might be interested in a recent article by Practical fish keeping (a very popular aquatic magazine in the u.k)

5 salts were tested, these being D-D H2O,Reef crystals,Tunze,Tetra and Red sea coral pro.

The salts were tested by an accredited laboratory and D-D was found to have a formula that was closest to Natural sea water with no additives needed to buffer the salt.

Further reading can be found here although the full article is only available in the magazine which may not be available in Canada.:sad:

http://www.theaquariumsolution.com/h...ines-best-test

All the best Tony

I currently use salinity, aquavitro salt. Its actually really good, I was using d-d h20cean, I like it too. Althou aquavitro has very good element levels. The only thing i dont like about aquavitro, is the salt has to be in the display for about 30 min to 1hr, after a 24 hr aeration, for it to clear up.