marine salts
 

OK, so 2 articles now have rated marine salts and Instant Ocean which I use now wasn't rated very well in the tests.

http://www.aquacraft.net/s9910.html

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-0...ture/index.htm

So where can I get Bio-Sea salt in Vancouver?

Okay, Aquacraft the company that collected and then provided the samples for these tests is the same company that makes Bio Sea and Marine Environment. The tests are... um.. to say the least, biased...
If you use IO, keep using it, there is no arguing the fact that IO has the cleanest most modern facility of any of the salt manufacturers. I myself use Kent salt and it is IO salt with extra stuff added, it is processed and packaged by IO in their state of the art facility.

I've used Bio Sea, I've used Marine Environment, and other salts... what I didn't like about them was inconsistancies, I like my salt to mix up consistant and niether of the Aqua craft salts were consistant to any degree, I was seeing pH of almost 9 in one batch and 7.5 in another, I was also very dismayed to find Ca levels around 200ppt, and alk levels around 4 dKH.

The kent salt has been very good to me, but if you use IO now, and are happy with it, keep using it.

Don't change salts because MDP says his are better, change salts if you don't like yours... btw, IO is one of the most commonly used salt, if it really isn't that good, why do people use it?

Thanks for sharing your experience. From what I read, testing was not done nor paid for by Aquacraft. I think Aquacraft published the data on their website because their brand came in 1st place. My animals might not be dying but if there are better salts out there, I would be willing to try it. It does seem to make sense that (all else equal) the better salt would have less metals in it and with concentrations closer to natural sea water.


QUOTE-"The S-15 Report™ was prepared by Anresco Laboratories, an independent third party laboratory. The majority of testing was performed by the University of Missouri, a US Government prime contract testing laboratory, Environmental Trace Substances Research Center, Dept. of Environmental Science & Technology."

http://www.aquacraft.net/s9911.html

QUOTE-"The S-15™ Report™ is the first and only independent comparative assay of 15 different brands of artificial or synthetic sea salts. It was commissioned and paid for by Global Scientific Publications. GSP is not in any way affiliated with any manufacturer of sea salts. Nor, is any manufacturer of synthetic sea salts associated with Global Scientific Publications."


Did you get your Bio-Sea locally or did you have to mail order that? Thanks.


.

Interestingly, the S15 report was reviewed by someone from the Calgary Aquarium Society.

http://www.calgaryaquariumsociety.co..._Aquarist.html

I really hope no one buys into the latest ad :roll: :wink: ....we all know there has been some collaboration for a long time here....with a certain person and Marc Weiss...

Take care....

That's really funny, since it is dated 2000, the Calgary Aquarium Society is strictly FW, that is what I understand in 2003.

Deb, The author of that review didn't own a marine aquarium at that time. Note his last paragraph

"I would certainly now want to try Marine Environment (which is available locally) if I ever get back into marines."

However, looking at the objectives of the Aquarium Society, they don't exclude marine aquarists from joining do they?

http://www.calgaryaquariumsociety.co...bjectives.html

They even have 1 article in the article section on marines. :) Well, ok, it looks like the emphasis of the club is freshwater and marine aquarists would not benefit from the club at the moment.

Regarding the salt mixes, let's forget the conclusions made in the RK article about toxins. Do you think the salt composition figures are accurate in both reports? If so, I would like to try the salt mix that is closest to natural sea water.

This report came under heavy fire when it first came out, not to mention it seemed to coincide with the company marketing campaign. Many bandwagoned saw no difference, and went back to their old salt.

They claim it as a Scientific report yet, their sampling methods would not make for a fair scientific report.

Not to mention alot of what improves their salt was the bottle of additives that came in each bag. Take away the "magic bottle" and their soapbox doesn't look so lofty anymore.

One more thing, their salt was usually around $10 dollars more than Kent and Instant Ocean. With the saving you could buy what ever additives you like!

My two bits...

Well that last article on R/K did put a little fear in the back of my mind, and Sam I do share your concerns :?

I have been using IO for the last five and a half years now in a 27gl system.
If there was problems to arise from this salt mix, I think a reefer/keeper with a smaller system such as mine would notice any harmful effects.

To tell you the truth, over the last 66 months I have only had two noticeable changes within my reef when it came to salt mixes. Both of these changes were not positive, as I witnessed stressed fish and poor polyp or tissue expansion. After switching back to IO for both of the following months, I saw positive changes occur in both cases.

"I believe" that IO is the best mix on the market right now, as I have seen the results with my own eyes and not by just some samples and numbers. There is however always room for improvement, so "I believe" that if there are mixes on the market that don't provide what our systems require-then I'm sure new blends or improvements will be introduced in the future.

And last "I believe" that we cannot jump on any bandwagon too early! Until there is substantial, firm evidence that certain mixes are harmful to our tanks, then do or use what works best for your reef or fish setup-that's my belief and I'm stick'n to it! :wink:

Sam I understand your concerns and thoughts, really I do. Aquacraft did pay for the tests to be done, they did not do the tests themselves, They DID mix some of the samples with water before they shipped them and they did do the packaging.

The worst salts I have used have been bio sea and Marine Environment, the pH alk and Ca swings made it VERY difficult to do water changes.

IO may not be the best salt out there, but it is a good salt, if you want to try Bio Sea, king Ed pets sells it by the 50 gallon bag, they also have marine environment. I've tried both and would rather pay the extra and get my Kent salt, thats what I have had the best experience with.

I like simplicity, I add 4 cups of Kent salt to my 10 gallon make up tank, I run a power head for 24 hours and keep the water heated. When I test it it has a pH of 8.2-8.3 a Ca level of 440-460 and an Alk level of 11dKH, always, I've been through 2 200 gallon buckets now. Don't forget Kent is IO salt with extra Ca and trace elements added so if the kent salt is that stable IO is probably too.

Just for a thought, I'm willing to bet aquacraft didn't just take a random sampling of salts, I bet they looked for discrepancies in the salts before they packaged them up, OBVISOUSLY I can't prove that, but I have my suspicions, I just figured they must have had a lot of salt laying around .. what did they do with it all?

the one thing that i noticed is that shimek was wondering if bad salt is what is causing the premature death of fish that are supposed to live for decades. do you guys think he has any argument there? i suppose we could assume the fish die prematurely because of disease or tank crashes, generally lack of attention on the part of the hobbyist?

It is a really tough call, fish can die because of old age, disease, sensitivity to dissolved chemicals we never test for etc... I think the thing to look for again is simply consistancy. If you keep a log of water changes, tests, fish added, fish deaths you may see a long term pattern. Radio shack sells a Intel Microscope, if someone is really concerned with premature death of fish I would encourage them to do a disection, set up slides and look for a cause of death. Do a google search on marine fish diseases and you will have lots of material to compare your slides too.

Myself, if a fish dies in my tank I have to assume I didn't meet its needs, or it died of old age.... If all my fish start to die, I assume there is a disease of some sort.

With all the recent concerns raised about impurities in synthetic marine mixes has anyone tried using the real thing? After all we do live on the coast. Obviously there are pollution concerns but doesn't the Vancouver Aquarium get its water from the straight?

Hey BCOrchidGuy,

Have you seen that Intel Microscope at Radioshack lately??? I thought they had discontinued it??

Christy :)

No I haven't seen it lately, I know someone who has one... Guess I just assumed they were still available.

Some things to think about:

1. The s-15 tests were done by an independant lab
2. The interpretation and the "rating" scale were done by Aquacraft
3. There was one other salt that compared favorably to the Aquacraft salt but was critisized for inconsistant manufacture (aquacraft interpretation.

I have no boubt that people can and have been very successful with the many and various salts out there.

There should also be no doubt that a captive environment is no where near as good as the real thing, and that all our tanks are sub-optimal to some degree for all the organisms we see.

The testing Dr. Ron has done of late suggest that one of the reasons our tanks are sub-optimal is high concentrations of heavy metals.

look at the body of evidence:

1. numerous scientific studies (peer reviewed and all) have shown that heavy metals in concentrations much lower than in our aquaria are toxic to a number of organisms

2. All the tanks waters Dr. Ron tested were extremely high in heavy metals.

3. Urchin larvey reacted poorly to salts high in heavy metals and well to those low in heavy metals.

4. The actual test results from the s-15 report corroberate the values Dr. Ron published in his latest test ( nothing to do with the aquacraft interpretation).

While there is no smoking gun (anyone got $25,000 laying around to produce one?), the evidence continues to build that heavy metals are the culpret (or at liest one).

Should everyone switch salts? Not likely.

Are the two salts Dr. Ron had success with in the urchin tests an improvement over the other salts? Probably.

If I were involved in breeding fish or trying to keep fish or critters that were known to be sensitive to water quality would I switch. Yes.

I may even switch salts to see if it helps out with critter diversity in my tank. After all, the two salts were better for urchin larvae and any critter that reproduces in my tank will go through a larval stage.

Fred.

Good points Fred, it is a shame so many people see the S-15 report and take it as a salt bible, frankly I see it as propaganda. I have had good luck with IO and Kent, I use the Kent because I like the extra calcium/strontium/magnesium. I had horrible luck with Bio Sea and Marine Environment, but thats just me being picky. Now I've been through 3 bags and a bucket of Kent salt, I can add 4 cups to my 10 gallon tank and I get a consistant pH, Alk, and Ca level, thats pretty much all I want in a salt, consistancy and adequate levels of buffer and calcium.

As far as the heavy metals goes, I wonder if using a water conditioner in your tank that binds heavy metals so they can be removed with carbon works to lower the heavy metals. I am not sure if they actually remove them or just bind them so test kits can't read them.

I wouldn't say many people are taking the S-15 as a salt bible. From what I've read lately, most do agree with you and have criticized the report.

But on another note, let's look at Dr. Ron's study. Is there any reason to believe that his results are flawed? If we performed the same test, is there any reason to believe that our results would be different than his? The survivability of urchin larvae is probably not important to any of us but if some salts are giving better survivability to sensititive animals and are also used by some aquaculture facilities, why not consider it? I am going to stay away from Aquacraft for now but I'll give Crystal Sea some consideration.

Interesting discussion. I think much along the same lines. I use prime whenever adding water to the tank and also use chemi-pure on a regular basis. I think the use of detoxifiers like prime do indeed help bind the metals and allow the carbon/resin products to catch them somewhat efficiently, albeit they are still effectively in the system until that media is replaced with fresh. That along with agressive protein skimming works quite well.

Although I have never used one myself I believe the best artificial product is a poly filter. The best natural way of helping with these elements is through the harvesting of caulerpa, which is best achieved through a slow flow refugium...

Cheers
Steve

I am at my LFS daily, and I hear people talk about it all the time (S-15 report), on another board I used to frequent but left because of the endless name calling and fighting, a number of people would find the report and think, OH MY GOODNESS I use IO I have to change salts, so they go to one of the Aquacraft salts and suffer massive losses of life etc...
Try Crystal Sea, I see no reason not to try other salts just use common sense (and avoid aqua craft) but remember there are lots of people who swear by Bio Sea and Marine Environment. Myself I'm sticking with what works for me... if I had a F/O tank I would use the IO, no need for the extra goodies in the Kent, mind you right now the Kent is the cheapest salt to buy, even cheaper than IO.

I use Prime also, and starting to use Chemi Pure, I did use it with Discus and I thought it was pretty good. Hoping for the best....

Funny thing...As I entered an LFS today, the first thing that I saw when I entered the store was a young lady bringing up a bag of Aquacraft Marine Environment salt to the cashier and nearly dropping the bag accidentally right in front of me as I was going towards the fishroom. :):)

As far as the heavy metals goes, I wonder if using a water conditioner in your tank that binds heavy metals so they can be removed with carbon

I asked several people about that and no-one seems to know for sure.

From a rather long discussion between Dr. Ron and Randy Holmes-Farley I gather that heavy metals are not particularly soluble at high pH, and bind rather quickly to a number of organics renering it less bio-available.

I wish I had the $ to run some additional tests.

It would be interestint to take some samples from one bag of salt and run half of them through carbon for a while and then test for heavy metals to see if there is a significant reduction.

Fred.

It just strikes me as odd that no one has tested for this, I mean... it could really make a difference in the way salts are manufactured, and used.

natural seawater
 

I would like to see if anyone has any input on a question ron raised earlier. Has anyone used and locally harvested sea water? If so what was there experience. I know when I set up my 90 gallon tank, half of the water I used was collected from the Georgia Straight. I ran it through carbon for a week with a heater before adding the sand and live rock. When I added the rest of the water I was able to adjust for the chemistry I wanted. I was amazed at the lifeforms from the very beginning. (I also scooped a few pounds of ocean mud for the sand bed)

I live in White Rock, but I collected the water from the West Coast of Vancouver Island on a trip to Sooke.

I think that is a marvelous idea, bad thing could be some harmful micro organisms... but you run some risk with live rock too don't you. I have thought about going to some of the local marine parks and getting some sand I just can't figure out which would be really clean. I guess getting it from the mouth of the Capilano when the tide is coming in would be pretty clean water, I wonder about the rock and sand there.... LR??? FREE??... illegal to take though I imagine.

I think mutabaruka only collects water and mud from the ocean, not rock and sand. Rock here would be too dense.

I used NSW for a short time. The large amount of phosphates in the water kept my algae happy and that was about it. I switched back to making my own. I'm sure NSW without phosphates is fabulous if you can get it. I don't have a boat though.

Christy :)

The Vancouver Aquarium uses water from Burrard Inlet that is pumped in. I believe that the water comes from 200m from shore and I forget the depth. They use primary treatment that is all underneath the exhibits to filter the water before use. It's used in all their displays except the coral tank which they use synthetic. The salinity of the water is a little low for the corals.

Walt Smith also uses NSW in his Fiji station. He gets his water 2 miles from shore and still filters with UV and RK2 skimmers.

The amount of work required with trying to collect and filter NSW seems to be more trouble than it's worth for the average hobbiest.

I sent off an email to Kent and asked them about it, if anyone wants a copy of the email please PM me, basically the scientists at Kent dont believe trace elements of metals will be an issue as long as regular partial water changes are done and the tank is well maintained.

My take on the salt dispute was that more frequent water changes was just adding more heavy metals from the new salt. And if I remember correctly there was 50 times the amount of copper in IO than there was in NSW. And the bottom line was why add the extra heavy metals if you didn't need to. (as in a different saltmix.)

GAZZA

Gazza, strangley enough IO is known for its lack or low amounts of trace elements. If IO has huge levels of copper then the Kent should have even higher seeing as Kent is IO with additives.

Remember Aqua Craft put the samples together, prepared them, put some in tap water, some in R/O water etc... basically I think they prepared the samples to elevate their samples. They also interpreted the results of the tests.

IMHO the S-15 report is a prime example of misrepresentation/propaganda/chest thumping and grasping at straws to try to increase sales.

Actually Kent has 1.44 times more copper the IO. In fact IO was the lowest tested.

Kent 2.4 mm/k

IO 1.8 mm/k

Salt Comparison

Have a look...

Cheers
Steve

Copper in that quantity would work out to .156 ppm

((2.4mm/k x molar mass of copper 63.55g)/1000) x SG of test water 1.023 = a copper concentration of 0.156 ppm

Yes you are right Kent salt has more copper, am I worried? no, I think if your salt is consistant from batch to batch that is your biggest worry. If you want to change salt because of that then go ahead. I think though that it is an extreme measure. I would rather have a salt that mixes pH, Ca and Alk wise the same batch to batch. What will you do if you get a batch of salt that has a massive dose of copper..... I personally know two people who have used BioSea/Marine Environment on and off over the years, they both keep saying they will never go back but they do, they have complained about low pH (7.5) Hi pH (9.6) and Ca and Alk levels that leave them scratching their heads..... they change salts... their coral closes up... so they go back to the one they love to hate.

Just for clarification, I was not knocking Kent. I have been using their salts now for over 6 years and have no intension of changing. :D

I actually bought a small bag of IO salts a while ago and saw nothing about it that would make me switch.... :wink:

Cheers
Steve

I've been in contact with Kent on number of occasions as well as spoken to reps at the LFS. Kent salt is IO salt with Kents additives put in. Kent salt is produced and packaged by IO. Kents reasoning was that IO has the cleanest, most up to date, most controlled enviroment in their labs. Kent made the judgement that it would be more cost effective to have IO just put in a TOP SECRET :wink: set of ingredients. As I said before, if I had a fish only tank I would use IO, but I know a number of people who use IO in their reefs and they do pretty darn well with it.

I guess I got defensive as I've had nothing but trouble with the BioSea Marine Environment stuff. I hate to see anyone use it.

Call me a pessimist when it comes to business but my interpretation of that would be; "IO agreed to give us the best deal to repackage their salt with our "extra" ingredients."

Possibly Troy but even MDP will admit, no one has a lab/processing plant like IO... although the aquacraft folks will tell you there is nothing wrong with shipping damp salt, just put it in a bucket and add some water to make soup and then add that to your water... ( the owners suggestion), he also admits that he uses old cement mixers... steel ones to mix salt. IO uses Stainless... Aquacraft doesn't even bother to dry the air in their processing plant..... I feel confident that Kent made the decision based on the ability of IO to produce a top quality consistant product.....

PS.. I just realized I sound like a Kent advertisment.... lol.. I've never endorsed anything before... wow I must be getting old...

I've used both IO and Kent and there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with either. I actually find IO mixes up a little better and I never got Ca readings over 340ppm from either of them. Do you think there have been changes to either brand over the past few years? I don't think I've used Kent for about two maybe three years.

Troy I can sure find out easy enough I have been in email contact with one of the Kent scientists for a few days regarding trace elements and heavy metal toxicity.