Reefers Best Salt

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by Jason McK

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?

[Jason McK]

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

[cprowler]

Any updates?

[kwirky]

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.

[Jason McK]

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

[Jason McK]

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

J

[kwirky]

Originally Posted by Jason McK

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.

[Jason McK]

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

J

[Gordon H]

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!

[mastergunsg]

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.