Reef Crystals or Red Sea Salt Pros/Cons
- Thread starter ScottyD36
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stanlalee
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The main difference between RC and Redsea Pro is $35 a bucket. They are both very high alkalinity salts. Neither are known to keep their elevated elements completely dissolved without some precipitation (in other words your mixing/storage container isn't going to stay clean with either one). The regular Redsea has much lower alkalinity and isn't comparable element wise to RC. There is nothing in or about Redsea pro that I would pay almost double for it.
hllb
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I abandoned reef crystals when a batch I bought (when Amazon had a sale) had mag at 2400 right out of the pail, even after mixing the dry salt as well as I could. I don't know if amazon sales where it's super cheap is really dumping batches that didn't meet standards, but that's what it seemed. I switched to Red Sea Pro and really liked it - it mixed very easily and mixed very cleanly and was consistent. Over time though, I needed to start dosing to keep my alk up and the high alkalinity didn't work for that so I no longer use it.
jjencek
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I keep my tank at Alk = 8.0. When I started to dose Alk, I switched from the Red Sea Pro high Alk to the regular RC which has Alk at 8.0.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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My Tank Thread
I'm not a fan or organics in salt mix (like in Reef Crystals) since I like to store it unstirred for extended periods while I use it, and organics in it risks it becoming stagnant and producing hydrogen sulfide. For that reason, I prefer normal IO to Reef Crystals.
homer1475
Figuring out the hobby one coral at a time.
Exactly why I switched too. After a couple weeks of storing RC, it got this "funny smell"(for lack of a better term), and if I did a WC with it, my tank responded negatively.
Switched to plain old purple box IO, and no more smell even if stored for months at a time. I do of course have to bring the ALK down with an acid, and bump up the calcium to 420. Mag is always above normal ranges so I don't worry about that. What little bit of "doctoring" I have to do to the salt in no way negates the higher price of a salt that would match my parameters.
