Reefers Best Salt
 

How many of you guys are using this?

I still have 1/2 a pail of Ocean Pure left but I am not happy with it right now (I switched from IO) I am finding really high MG but super low ALK (I'm testing between 4-6DKH)

I'm tempted to turf what I have left and bite the bullet for a box of KZ salt but it sure is expensive.

i personally like red sea coal pro it has treated me well

I went from Red Sea Pro to Ocean Pure Pro. I am debating the switch to RBS when I finish my bucket. I would love to see what kind of changes you see with it.

The zeoheads seem to love it, and I'm just not happy with ocean pure pro (the only reason I switched from IO was that when I ran out Golds only had the OPP instock)

I'm just blown away by the $99 price tag for RBS though... I guess only doing ~5Gallon water changes every week now with zeo it should last 6 months so maybe it's not so bad after all?

This week's water change will use up the last of my Ocean Pure Pro. I picked up a box of Reefer's Best and will start using it next week. I didn't want to turf what I had left so have been using up the remainder of my last box before switching.

Having a nano tank means I don't go through very much salt so the total cost for me isn't that high.

They recommend a low Alkalinity (under 7 DKH) with Zeovit so I would guess Reefer's Best will test fairly low for Alkalinity.

I could test the freshly mixed salt during my next water change if that would help.

I hear the same. I used to pay $79-85 for a pail of Red Sea Coral Pro in Edmonton, so I don't see it as quite the big jump as you do.

Under 7DKH? hmm I'll have to do a little more reserch on that. My tank water tested at 5DKH last night (using two different brand test kits) and I started to panic a bit.

When you mix up your first batch I would be interested to see how your tests come out.

The zeo guide does suggest if you use RBS that your weekly changes can slide to every 2 weeks ... so it might not be too bad.

5dKH might be a little low. Guide says to have it 6.5-7.5 and that any higher "shows no advantage" (which I take to mean, "not detrimental"). Coming from a few years ago when the recommendation for alk was to be 1/10th the Ca in meq/l (ie., 400Ca, 4.0meq/l -> ~11-12dKH), it's hard for me to wrap my head around low Alk numbers.

Nevertheless my alk tests at 8dKH, and unless someone comes out and tells me that it's bad, I'm leaving it there. It's such a pain to dial in different target numbers from my calcium reactor and kalk reactor that I would prefer to leave things the way they are. Plus, rapid changes in Alk I have found to be bad (worse than say low Alk, or high Alk, all on its own .. it's like the change or swing from one value to another is worse than whatever the old value was). So adjust your Alk slowly would be my recommendation.

Any advice on how to raise my alk level.. without resorting to even more equipment in my fish room :p

Seachem Reef Advantage or other alkalinity type buffer. Do you run a reactor right now at all? Ie., kalk or Calcium reactor.. if so, just throttle up slightly.

I'm not using a reactor for Calcium at present. I am dosing manually with liquid when required ( I seem to maintin a Ca of 380-400 whisn is fine for me)

I'm thinking I may just throw some baking soda in the over tonight and start dosing that way, cheaper than store bought additives perhaps.

RBS is what I am using now .....it was more money but it dissolves way better...with in a few minutes its completely gone and looks super clear......and Ive noticed my water in the tank is clearer......and I thought I needed glasses.....lol

Here's a calculator for dosage of different products for increasing alkalinity
http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chemcalc.html

Here is a table from the calculator showing the effect on PH of various Alkalinity increasing products:

Product........................................... ................Effect on PH
Baking soda.............................................. .......Somewhat lower
Soduim Carbonate Anhyd. (Baked B. Soda)........... Substantially Higher!
Kent's Tech CB Part B Alkalinity...........................Higher
Warner Marine CalxMax Part B Alkalinity................ Moderate Increase
Randy's Recipe 1 Alkalinity Part............................Substantially Higher!
Randy's Recipe 2 Alkalinity Part............................Somewhat lower
Limewater (saturated)....................................... Substantially Higher!
Aq Systems Reef Evo SeaBuffer.......................... Substantially Higher!
Two Little Fisher C-Balance Part B........................Higher
ESV B-Ionic Original Ca Buff Pt 1..........................Substantially Higher!
ESV B-Ionic Bicarbonate Syst Pt 1........................Somewhat lower
Oceans Blend Part 2 of 2 Part Supplement..............Somewhat higher
Seachem Reef Buffer (dry)...................................Substantia lly Higher!
Seachem Reef Builder (dry)................................. Substantially Higher!
Seachem Reef Carbonate (liq)............................. Substantially Higher!
Tropic Marin Bio-Calcium Powder (Also Calcium)...... Minimal
Salifert All in One (Also Calcium)...........................Minimal
Salifert KH + PH Buffer (dry)............................... Higher
__________________

Baking soda is fine but you should mix in some washing soda at a ratio of 3:1 or something like that. For the cost of a powder ($20-30 which lasts me months) I've never bothered with baking soda/washing soda. Well, that, and the fact that the washing soda I've seen here has this sort of lemony zesty scent. I don't know what that is, but I'm not putting it in my tank. You can bake baking soda in the oven though to make your own washing soda. :)

Just mixing my first batch of RBS now. Will do a water change on the weekend at some point.
I'll post my results

J

left over oceans
 

hey Greg

why don't you just cut the OPP with a lesser brand of salt ie: IO. I'm cutting what I have left of my OPP with IO at a rate of 50/50 and this has helped with Ca and Kh. it has brought up my alk and lowered my Ca to reasonable levels. Now i just add Kent buffer for now to steady out the Ca usage of the tank.

cheers

Geoff

sorry...what is RBS?

right now im using Tropic Marin. pretty good from what i can tell. still have a bunch left, but im always open to suggestions :)

RBS: "Reefers Best Salt" - the salt mix made by the company that makes Zeovit products. About $100 for a box

Anyone have some test results from RBS? The usual will do :)

So I bit the bullet and bought some RBS today.. I figured why not.. I finished the first bag of my OPP in the bucket (I have two left I'll post up on the buy sell for a steal)

As mentioned i made my last salt change with the OPP tonight so next week I will start the RBS.

I was in Golds today and Sean told me that they are going to be offering two part dosing Ca/Alk in the next few weeks and offer dosing pumps so that should help solve my lower end CA and Alk readings :):)

When you finally crack the box (its still a box right?) open, will you do some preliminary tests for the rest of us?

RBS will test something like:

Ca 400
kH 7.0
Mg 1350
K+ 400

Sure will :-) Should be next weekend. I have to order a few test kits from J&L as I am short a few items I want to test.

Thank you! I am thinking this will be my next salt purchase once I work my way through my existing supply.

I heard a few batches were well below the 400Ca mark though.

RBS has a lower, more neutral Ca than other salts because its designed with the use of a Ca reactor in mind, eg. no sudden surge in Ca after a water change.

Since this product comes in a box, is the bag inside resealable?

There is just one large bag closed with a rubber band.

I moved the bag from the box to a plastic tub (from another brand) to protect it. Before putting it in the tub I rolled the bag around on the floor to make sure it was mixed well.

I reseal the bag with the rubber band it came with and put the lid on the tub to keep moisture out.

OK so I did my first RBS water change. These are the test results of the mixed water.
CA 410
ALK 9.2
Mg 1410
K 350
phos < 0.03

J

how much salt water did you mix up?

40G

I also might have contaminated my sample. But seeing only thr Alk be out of spec I'm not sure

I followed Brents suggestion and mixed the bag better and put it into a pail

Will perform same tests next week

J

Any updates?

at the store we mix up 50g lots and we test it at 380 calcium, 9dkh and 1350 alk and 380ish potassium when using RO water. the alk is much higher when used with tap water.

A obervation I made. Not that I'm saying it's 100% RBS that did this.

My wife started a 14G Biocube in late Feb. It cycled with TMP and we added 1 fire fish and some mushrooms. It then began it's algae stage of the new tank syndrome. We then did a water change with RBS and it ended, within a day, any of the typical brown algae or cyano. We have since done 2 more water changes (1G each) using RBS and there is no algae in the tank. We have added a couple of Frogspawn frags and some Ricordia. All are loving it

J

Uncontaminated mix
Just did a water change Very over due
CA 400
ALK 7.0 Dkh
MG 1500
K 350-400

J

how big was the batch and what was the salinity?

I mixed up about 40 gallons of the stuff the other night and it mixed up to the following at 1.025 salinity:
Calcium 360 (salifert kit)
alk 9.0 dkh (elos kit)
mg 1350 (salifert kit)
potassium untested. i hate the potassium kit. I just assume reefer's best has better levels than any other salt I can get and leave it at that.

I keep the salt in a bucket and I tossed the bucket around to mix it up for about 3 minutes before adding it to the water. The water was warmed to 80F before hand because stuff precipitates from saltwater when heated quickly I find.

the RB salt sometimes preciptates a white powder. I had it happen once on a little 4g batch at home and it's happened a few times at the store. I haven't been able to put 2 and 2 together. At home it was a small batch. at work once was with tap water the other time with RO/DI. In the batch at home the water was heated before hand. at work the water's never heated before mixing the salt.

the zeo guide recommends adding carbonated water when mixing salt to aid in the mixing process. haven't tried that yet but i'm contemplating it.

here's what I notice about reefer's best when mixed at home:

every time I heat the water before hand. usually the batches are 4 gallons a time (except for this one time for the new tank). It's allways done with RO/DI water. I add some calcium chloride solution every time to the new saltwater before putting it in the tank so that it's around 425 going in (closer ballanced to the 9dkh)

Every time I mix it up I get slightly low calcium (round 350-375) pretty good kH (round 9 dkh) and around 1300 mg. I never test potassium because the test kit's so hard to read anyways.

40G sorry. I onlt ever mix 40G at a time.

J

Is there a significant difference between RBB and Tropic Marin. I've been using Tropic Marin for about a year now and I've never had to supplement with anything. Its been great!

I was doing some of reading on the zeovit forums for a while as i was looking into using RBS. I thought it was around 320 CA right out of the box and you had to mix in the supplied Ca to your desired level. Did they change the formula? Magnesium was supposed to be low as well.