Aquaforest Reef Salt vs Red Sea Salt [?]

[Anirban]

Thank you @Anirban, yes Tropic Marine is nice as well I know it because I'm using the regular Tropic Marine now no questions here. I'm asking because of a few things:

1. 70% of real red sea salt in Red Sea sounds like really cool !
2. AF products are nice products and new and many people have success with it I was wondering maybe that salt have something specific and new on the market that Red Sea salt doesn't have.
3. Tropic Marine PRO - just a quality nice salt, but doesn't have these nice marketing things that first two have.

So I'm just wondering if something worth a special attention to the one of products or they're all the same just a little different with the marketing. Doest it make sense ?

I would say beauty lies in details.....

Red sea contains 70% of real red sea salt but you aren't keeping red sea specific corals or fish, so how or why that should play an important role in your selection criteria? Thats just another type of salt for you.
Reef salt has nothing hugely different other than enriched micro-elements and closer to NSW levels. It works well when you use it with their other components. Its a bit economical too.
TMP is costly but doesn't market themselves well but the salt work like a charm.

They all are good but it depends on you what you want to achieve? I know you use zeovit so if I ask you why dont you use their salt? Possibly its very costly right. All these are good and there are balanced salts but with a bit difference in some element levels. Like TMP has a little more of potassium which none other salts has and you dont need to dose it when you use TMP. Similarly reef salt is more balanced all around so like us human being none of these salts are perfect but close to perfection.

 

[Bluefish9]

FWIW Berlibee, Red Sea has a feature on their website where you can look up the lot number of your salt and it pulls up their testing data for that lot.

I've used the Red Sea blue bucket exclusively for my tank so far. I don't have any complaints.

Another viable option in your search since you are looking for a salt with an alkalinity of 7.5 is Brightwell Aquatics NeoMarine salt. It's an all synthetic near NSW level salt. I've got three buckets of it and I am going to start giving it a shot.

Rick, curious...how is your corraline growth using the blue bucket exclusively? Although, Are you dosing anything? If so, I guess it would be hard to tell.

 

[Berlibee]

Thank you @Rick.45cal that's some nice info as well about the lot test numbers.

@Anirban Yes I understand. Just "natural, real, from the sea" sounds good for corals I can't do anything about. Yes, most of the people are using TMP or Red Sea blue bucket with Zeovit. All my questions are more just curiosity in details, I've got some nice tips and information from this thread thank you guys. This is what I was looking for.

@Bluefish9 I can say that my corraline is all F*!@#!@ over the tank with the regular Tropical Marine.

 

[seargentslice]

I use AF Reef Salt bug this info helped me decide..


http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/376194-long-salt-comparision/

 

[Rick.45cal]

Rick, curious...how is your corraline growth using the blue bucket exclusively? Although, Are you dosing anything? If so, I guess it would be hard to tell.

My tank has very high PAR values so coralline algae's growth has been slow, (I also started with ALL dry rock and didn't seed the tank with coralline)it has seemed to picked up substantially after increasing my Mg levels. Red Sea blue bucket is a little short in Mg for my tastes so hence trying the Brightwell aquatics Neo Marine next. My friend uses the brightwell and his tank is covered in coralline. We will see.

 

[Jimbo]

I was a regular user of the Red Sea Blue bucket which I was very happy with due to the fact that Alk is lower than most other salts.

I thought I'd give Aquaforest Reef Salt a try after reading about it on this forum and it was also a little cheaper the Red Sea. ( from Amazon.com but I think it's since gone up in price)

Anyway, I'm on my second bucket of AF and both tested below 7 ( 6.4 and 6.7dkh)in Alk on 2 different Salifert kits. The paper in the first bucket stated Alk tested at 7.7 and the second bucket stated Alk tested at 8.0 dkh. I contacted AF about the desrepancy in Alk tests and they stated their method of testing is way more accurate and reliable than Salifert.

Other than that the AF is fine. Switching back to Red Sea Blue as it tested pretty consistently around 8 dkh for me.

 

[Berlibee]

I use AF Reef Salt bug this info helped me decide..


http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/376194-long-salt-comparision/

That's some solid info there thanks!

 

[Berlibee]

@Jimbo Thank you for sharing your experience very helpful as well.

 

[mohammad.sga]

In redsea salt said phos is under .03 but in Af , anybody knows?

 

[Aviad Benz Verified Sponsor]

You are not missing anything, the numbers are the numbers just go to the actual manufacturer website and see exactly what the numbers are.
I attached all the screenshots on one screen below.

@Bluefish9 @3lusive guys, I must be missing something. I appreciate your input but you do agree that in reefing our main params that we're looking in the salt are Mag. Ca. K. Alk. If we do compare them:

Red Sea PRO at 33 ppt - Mag. 1390 / Ca. 450 / K 397 / Alk 12
Ref Sea Regular at 33 ppt - Mag. 1223 / Ca. 410 / K 403 / Alk 7.5
AF Reef Salt at 33 ppt - Mag. 1350 / Ca. 420 / K 390 / Alk 7.6
AF Sea Salt at 33 ppt - Mag. 1260 / Ca. 380 / K 320 / Alk 8.5

Can you see that Reef Salt and Red Sea PRO are two very different salts if someone like me need Alk around 7.5 I'm choosing between Reef Salt and red Sea Blue Bucket.
AF Sea Salt is totally out of all the ranges and with very big swings in params check this:

Parameters of a salt are presented below:

Temp: 24
Mg – 1200-1300 mg/l
Ca – 360-400 mg/l
K – 300-350 mg/l

There is 100, 40, 50 differences here in Mg. Ca.

And here is Reef Salt:

Mg – 1300-1380 mg/l
Ca – 410-440 mg/l
K – 380-400 mg/l

Much more stable params while mixing. This is what I'm saying Red Sea PRO and Reef Salt are two very different salts for different styles of running a tank. This is why I want to compare the Red Sea Blue bucket and Reef Salt.

Reef Sea Regular at 33 ppt - Mag. 1223 / Ca. 410 / K 403 / Alk 7.5
AF Reef Salt at 33 ppt - Mag. 1350 / Ca. 420 / K 390 / Alk 7.6

Because the main params are close to what I need and to each other.

There's the data from the RS and AF websites, you can also see the comp. to seawater in the graphs.
Hope that helps.
Red Sea Coral Pro is unique in the category with its high balanced level of the foundation elements.

 

[Berlibee]

Hello, RedSea marketing team!

 

[Aviad Benz Verified Sponsor]

Rick, curious...how is your corraline growth using the blue bucket exclusively? Although, Are you dosing anything? If so, I guess it would be hard to tell.

Yes, its called MyBatch you get an ICP analysis for each batch.

 

[Aviad Benz Verified Sponsor]

Hello, RedSea marketing team!

Because of you I had to open an account .
A friend referred me and I had a free few minutes.
Cheers.

 

[Berlibee]

Thanks guys, it's an old thread and I took all the numbers from the websites as well when I was saying "I must be missing something" I was just politically correct. Blue bucket rulezzzz and if you're looking for a missed market it's south Africa Cape Town. I know you supply there only PRO but people would love to see low alk salt as well. Cheers!

 

[Aviad Benz Verified Sponsor]

Thanks for the input. We just opened another\new S.African Distribution not to long ago.

 

[Berlibee]

My friend will be very happy to know about. Where it will be sold, do you know?

 

[Aviad Benz Verified Sponsor]

That will have to go through our sales manager.
Contact him here:
http://www.redseafish.com/contact-us/