Seachem Reef Salt

[Bryan]

Originally Posted by Doug

Ah. I remember something about that. Guess I had better read up. What does the higher alk. do for the increased borate levels.

The borate gives a alk test a false high reading, was quite a problem with the old salt mix at 20x borate. With the new formula of 4x borate and your alk tests at 3.0 meq/l, then it is likely only 2.8 meq/l, the borate is giving a slightly higher reading, so you would want to compensate and shoot for a alk test kit of around 3.2 meq/l. All explained on RC.

[Doug]

Wow. What a variety of different results.

Good to hear you're using it Sarah. Thanks for the alk. borate relationship info guys. I will read on it today. Rogue, I suspect thats the reason for my friends tank looking better. I,m not adding anymore additions to the salt mix with the Seachem and only drip kalk now plus a bit of reef builder for alk. now & then.
With my tank now mainly soft/lps corals, may cut the kalk dosing down until I see how the salt & water changes do. Even without a lot of sps corals, some of my rock is pretty old and layered in coralline, which still consumes a fair bit of calcium.

PoonTang, why do you think the Reef Salt is causing poor extension?

[PoonTang]

Originally Posted by Doug

Wow. What a variety of different results.

Good to hear you're using it Sarah. Thanks for the alk. borate relationship info guys. I will read on it today. Rogue, I suspect thats the reason for my friends tank looking better. I,m not adding anymore additions to the salt mix with the Seachem and only drip kalk now plus a bit of reef builder for alk. now & then.
With my tank now mainly soft/lps corals, may cut the kalk dosing down until I see how the salt & water changes do. Even without a lot of sps corals, some of my rock is pretty old and layered in coralline, which still consumes a fair bit of calcium.

PoonTang, why do you think the Reef Salt is causing poor extension?

The PE problem seemed to coincide with a switch to Seachem salt when my local supplyer ran out of IO. Not 100% positive this is the problem but it is the avenue I am currently working on. Also Christy told me that she had to switch to Seachem once and ran into the same problem. 1/2 way through the pail it became "driveway salt" and she switched back to IO.

[christyf5]

Originally Posted by PoonTang

The PE problem seemed to coincide with a switch to Seachem salt when my local supplyer ran out of IO. Not 100% positive this is the problem but it is the avenue I am currently working on. Also Christy told me that she had to switch to Seachem once and ran into the same problem. 1/2 way through the pail it became "driveway salt" and she switched back to IO.

Although I didn't know they had reduced the borate levels, not sure whether that was a factor but the pail I purchased was a number of years ago. I just don't trust it enough to try it again.