What Salt do you use?

[Chin_Lee]

OK Ben I need to ask how you measure 3 lbs of growth in a month?
And interesting thing about testing the pallet of salt only once to get the baseline readings. Do you check for markings on the buckets to ensure they are the same batch? If so, what markings do you look for for the batch number?

And I do agree that there have been so many great tanks in the past and present that used IO, I have to wonder if the comparisons of salt brands becomes just a comparison of numbers game based on the analysis on a batch of salt that was available at that time to the persons conducting the analysis. Its interesting that I've have even seen these numbers deviate on different analysis with the same brands of salt but yet we will base so much of our decisions on these analysis.
Personally i feel that consistency is the key regardless of what salts you use. If you are consistent with the Ca/Mg/Alk in your new water to match the current levels in your tank, you can't go wrong. Meanwhile take more time to work on getting the Ca/Mg/Alk in your whole tank up to the levels you wish to maintain instead of spending time on that small batch of saltwater which is only 10-15% of your total volume. And when you mix in the new saltwater, the numbers are diluted 85-90% of the difference.

[Jason McK]

First off I'm very happy to see that this topic has gotten so much attension. Good to see some descusion on the board.

Chin Can't agree with you more. That is the main reason I started this thread, is because of the massive fluctuations I was finding in my current salt. I will be quite gun shy for a while and don't think I will be able to only test my salt once a year. I also do not buy salt in such a large quanaty to ensure I get one batch number that lasts a whole year.
I have also been reading about certain fillers that can be used in Salt, like Borate, to boost ALK but Borate is not used by corals so it creates a difficiency in ALK. I personally have no way of measureing for such chemicals so it makes it hard to trust any salt.

J