Thanks for the kind words Chin.
This is my theory:
You cannot just use dehydrated seawater to make sea-salt, as it goes through a chemical change when it dries that is not reversible, so it has to be synthetic.
Some companies use stuff that dissolves very fast and is proven to work fairly well, like IO. In fact I can have a full 45 gallons of water made up (not including time to make the RO/DI water) in 1/2 hour, and it is clear! That includes adding the magnesium and calcium.
Other companies try to get higher levels of magnesium and calcium but then it makes the whole thing harder to dissolve and much more expensive. Of course salt making companies would never introduce a salt that required 2 or 3 steps to make, even if that is a better procedure, which I believe it is.
I have read too many stories of the "reef" salts causing problems long term. Although there have been a few complaints from IO, for the most part there are many fantastic reef tanks that use it w/o problems.
So, what if a 2 or 3 step process is better? What does it cost? How easy is it?
Well I buy a couple of skids of IO every year for the locals and I test one pail for alk, cal, and mag. I have always come up with around 10, 350, 1180.
That is the only testing I have done for the last 5 years on my salt, once a year! I mix up my water 45 gallons at a time. I use 6 teaspoons of calcium and about 350 ml of magnesium that I mix into the water before adding salt. Then the next day (or an hour later, whatever, as long as it is mixed, FWIW I use 2 large submersible pumps to mix and heat my water so it goes really fast!) I add the salt. It literally takes me less then 45 seconds to add the magnesium and calcium, and it costs about $2 a pail!!!!!!!!!!
I don't have the best tank around, but I am close. I get about 3 lbs of growth a month out of my SPS and clams in my 250.
Take it for what it is worth, but to me the above procedure just makes sense. I had to bang my head in the wall many times to get it all figured out when I was first getting into reefing, but now it is super easy!
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