Thanks Myka for pointing out my mistake, ya I meant Mag not sodium bicarb lol..I have find IO to be fine as water change water. My Kh is at 8 and I have been using IO for the last 3 years. My issue is that the magnesium is constantly too low. I too have tried a few salts on the market from seachem to coralife and even a box of reefers best and IMO all my corals reacted the same so back to IO I went after you buffer everything of course. I find when you buffer IO with MgCl first followed by the calcium chloride the alk usually falls back down to 8-9kh range due to bi carb ppting out the calcium.

aftering buffering IO with mag chloride and calcium chloride with measured amounts in grams my weekly water changes come out to

Ca:440
alk: 8.5-9
mg: 1350

and thats for a salt that is less then $45 for a bucket

This is not efficient. You export more nutrients by doing bigger waterchanges less often, obviously the most efficient would be doing 100% waterchanges, but that would be a bit shocking for the system! I have found over the years that doing 20% bi-weekly is more beneficial than 10% weekly. You use the same amount of water and salt, but get more benefit IMO. This is why I don't care for the high alkalinity of IO.

well heres my little, go against the grain bit of anecdote.......Ive used nothing but H2Ocean for a year on this version of my tank(Ive actually used the salt for about three years straight all together)....the thing that draws me to this salt is the fact that it is a naturally evaporated salt, not a synthetic...I couldnt care less what the levels are because no salt is perfect.......they all lack something......That being said, I have not dosed a single one of the big three (Ca, Mg and DKH) in the whole year + the tank has been running.....I have no Idea what my parameters are, as I havnt tested the tank either.......those of you that have seen pics of my stuff or have seen my tank in person know that my corals arent suffering........for those that havnt seen it, its heavily SPS and zoa dominant.....Im not getting huge growth in this version of the tank....I didnt really want huge growth after the last version, so this doesnt bother me.....my corals color is good and thats all that matters to me.........go H2Ocean!!!:mrgreen:

yes of course if you have nutrient problem it's not ideal but if you don't then it is more stable that way.

According to this though, it would be better to do one big water chance 40% per month??

wow, that must produce some major swings.

If you are doing this and having zoanthids, don't you have colonies melting away? Some zoanthids are very sensitive to alkalinity swing so by doing only water change and not compensating for alkalinity I am guessing there are large swings between the moment right before the water change and right after....no good.

What type of zoanthids do you have? and what have you lost if you have lost some?

Doug, that's what drew me to H2Ocean as well, the fact that it is a natural salt and has lower alkalinity than IO. You're nuts for not dosing and testing...I think you're looking for V3, but for your sake I sure hope not! :eek:

I figured you meant Mg. :) That's an interesting observation with the magnesium. I have never tested the alkalinity afte adding the calcium and magnesium chlorides. I do use a bit of magnesium sulphate as well.

Well, waterchanges export more than just nutrients, and import more than just clean water. You have to find the happy medium. You will get cleaner water with more minerals and such if you do bigger waterchanges, but you have to think about minimizing the changes to the tank as well as cost. As I already stated, for me this happy medium is 20% bi-weekly. A couple times a year I will do a 50% waterchange and I find my tank responds to this big change in a positive way rather than a negative way, so I don't think it is getting "shocked" by the changes.

Absolutely! I would prefer to do a larger change myself once a month, but I can only mix 50g at a time. If I could make 100g of new water, I would do a 50% monthly instead of 25% bi-weekly.