Which Salt is Best? Answer inside

[Black96WS6]

Full article here:
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-03/rs/feature/

My quick summary for those that don't want to read the article:

Crystal Sea Marinemix and Bio-Sea Marinemix are the best you can buy, and what you should be buying if you have invertebrates.

I hope this helps others, I just found this out myself.

 

[quarryshark]

Hmm, let me guess who you work for........

 

[sumphead]

We, or at least most of us, have seen this comparison before. It just seems a wee bit bias on all counts. Show me a test done by a nuetral lab including all of the name brand salts with control and I'll show you which salt is the best. As always I believe this is a hobby of preference which is often attempted to be swayed by a cut-throat industry of manufacturers and retailers trying to convince everyone thier product is the best. Test for yourself and if you like the results stick with it!

 

[cj10488]

Crystal Sea Marinemix and Bio-Sea Marinemix are the best you can buy, and what you should be buying if you have invertebrates.

If you do a search on Reefcentral about CS salt you will find that It caused a MASS bleaching episode.. We are talking 400-500 people when they switched from IO to CS... Also CS is extremely low in Mg.. You are going to be spending more money in Mg supplements than you will be the salt... I have used CS salt 1 box.. No bleaching but I can say my corals didnt look like the do now... IMO Oceanic is the best salt you can get... I have used several brands of salt and nothing has made my tank look like this Oceanic does... That study only showed that you can hatch Urchin eggs in CS salt... I personally dont want to have 100's of urchins in my tank.. Although just about any Invert that has babies will loose just about all of them due to skimming/fish food... I would do a bit more reading about Crystal SEas salt before you decide on using it... Here is a 959 post thread on RC just about the bleaching alone.. CS bleaching

HTH<
JAmes

 

[Ira]

oceanic salt

 

[ClamKnuckle]

IO...Because it is the only stuff I can find locally! 8)

 

[quarryshark]

Found out today, my lfs just got in Oceanic. I just switched from IO to reef crystals on my last water change. Would switching again harm my fish at all. I mean that there will be 3 different salt mixes in my system.
I am in a battle with cyno, and part of it is to get a better salt mix.

 

[Black96WS6]

I actually did some more research on this. It seems people that switch back and forth may run into problems. Those that start with Instant Ocean should just stick with that. I've already started mine with Coralife. But the next tank I setup is going to be with Marinemix. Plus it makes sense, it has less metals and more closely matches natural sea water, which is what you'd want anyway, regardless of the brand or whether or not you believe the tests.

I also learned Instant Ocean, Coralife, and some others are all manufactured in the same facility anyway!!

 

[quarryshark]

I also learned Instant Ocean, Coralife, and some others are all manufactured in the same facility anyway!!

No kidding, now thats interesting info. Thanks!!

 

[William]

I don't know.


With his first posts like this, Sounds like he's just someone hired to go around and post this stuff.


Could be wrong, could just be eager I guess. But it sure is suspicious.

 

[XXFirefighter]

I don't know.


With his first posts like this, Sounds like he's just someone hired to go around and post this stuff.


Could be wrong, could just be eager I guess. But it sure is suspicious.

Naw, you right...
He's not even been back yet to defend himself..
He tossed in his hook to fish and moved on !

 

[quarryshark]

I don't know.


With his first posts like this, Sounds like he's just someone hired to go around and post this stuff.


Could be wrong, could just be eager I guess. But it sure is suspicious.

Naw, you right...
He's not even been back yet to defend himself..
He tossed in his hook to fish and moved on !

LOL!! Gotta love it. We get spammed by telephone, email, snail mail and now in our sanctuary.

 

[OhTheHumanity]

I use Oceanic myself. Love the stuff. Can't beat how fast it disolves, the crystals are alomst the size of powdered sugar.

I know this was brought up in another post, but Oceanic has been out for a while now. How much is everyone paying for the 200 gal bucket? I paid $49.99 for mine at the LFS, 3 weeks later and to this day it's $39.99 at the same LFS. lol

 

[ellisz]

Must be nice. Locally all we get is IO and Red Sea. 2 LFS are listed on oceanic's website but neither one says they are going to get it. One of the LFS is a dedicated SW store only and has an awesome setup but he swears Red Sea is the best salt available.

I just dont want to mail order buckets of salt...

 

[quarryshark]

My lfs just got it and they told me its $60 a bucket.

 

[snapcrackler]

My stupid LFS charges 66 bucks for a bucket of Oceanic..



What a RIP!

This is why I order my salt online which is ridiculous again because why doesn't Oceanic or whomever set up a direct order where the take the stupid buckets of salt and put them on the stupid UPS truck and send them to our #$%#! house without shipping them to a stupid LFS first so we have to pay for SHIPPING THE STUPID BUCKET TWICE PLUS THE MARKUP!

Anyway I use oceanic and have switched from IO but sometimes I use IO in that tank too.

I am having a bad day. Just thought I would share.

 

[Nitrate]

I dont want to come across as the defender of the LFS, but mail order companies dont have to pay near the overhead that the LFS does (per square foot) and they deal in large volumes so they can afford a much larger discount. They probably also have leverage to work out greater discounts when purchasing the materials from the manufacturer.

Most LFS are owner operators and none of the ones in my town are getting rich selling salt. As a matter of fact the only profitable area that my fav LFS has is in a tank cleaning service.

Theres no excuse for bad advise, but I dont mind paying a little more for product to get it locally.

..just my humble opinion..

 

[Brisc0]

My LFS won't carry Oceanic, but he charges 75.00 for a 200G bucket of ReefCrystals. I can get a 90G bucket of Oceanic at Petsmart for 28.00 though. I am considering the change over once I run out of Reefcrystals next week.

 

[wilson]

Is at alright to cahnge salts in one tank, i was thinking of getting IO becuase i can get a 200 g bucket for 50 cdn. If i were to find oceanic salt after would it be ok to have two different kinds of salt in my tank.

 

[Black96WS6]

He's not even been back yet to defend himself..

Defend myself? From what?

I have something called a JOB (yes I had to work this weekend), I don't have time to check in on Internet forums all the time.

And thanks for welcoming me, perhaps I'll find another forum that's a little friendlier...