Reef Crystals parameters crazy high??

pdxmonkeyboy · Oct 15, 2019

Some brands suffer from variations between batches. FFR, switching salt brands based on what is cheapest is probably not a great recipe for success.

BeejReef · Oct 15, 2019

I use Reef Crystals as well and did have an occasion where a batch mixed up with near 500 calcium and almost 1500 magnesium. One issue out of like 20 mixes though. Perhaps more expensive salts are more consistent, but nothing is ever 100%. The experience got me into the habit of making much larger batches and testing my stored water.

I've also started doing about a 50/50 blend of IORC and regular IO. Seems to bring the parameters down a little, close to what I like to run. I prefer to have to adjust my stored salt up, if I have to, than to continually fiddle with the dosing to compensate for elevated-levels wc water.

pdxmonkeyboy · Oct 15, 2019

I addressed this issue by buying 6 200 gallon boxes of salt, mixing them together and then putting them in 50 gallon bags because I mix 50 gallons at a time. Not fun and pretty dang messy, but more fun than testing the parameters every time I mix.

sfin52 · Oct 15, 2019

I just roll my bucket of rc to keep things mixed up. I do that the day before mixing water.

jsvand5 · Oct 15, 2019

I’d order another batch of calibration fluid. I had a similar issue last year and it turned out my calibration fluid was incorrect and my salinity was about 1.030. Lost a lot of SPS before I figured out that it was something so simple causing my problems.

tmorford · Feb 20, 2022

eggplantparrot said:
hey yall, im a newbie just getting into the salty side of things. i am slowly setting up a 75G tank, and in the mean time, have set up a 10 gallon to age some rock and get used to testing etc.

i bought a 200G mix box of Reef crystals as it was cheap, cheaper than the 160g bucket version at my lfs. i did not bother to test the parameters after mixing my first batch and filling the tank (i should have but forgot) as i did not have any corals. i bought some rubble from a tank with a couple fish in it to seed and have been dosing Seachem Stability according to instructions. i have also added a big chunk of Caribsea south seas base rock.

tonight as i sat in front of my tank watching my clown, i remembered i had bought a Red Sea Foundation Pro test kit the same time i bought the salt. i went ahead and tested the water. i have read Reef crystals has elevated parameters but the results i got were quite crazy.

i used pretty much the full 1ml of titrant for all 3 tests, which looks like:

Cal 500 ppm
Alk 14 dKH
Mag 1600 ppm

i mixed the salt in a bucket as well as i could, used a pump to turn the water and a heater to bring it up to same temp as tank (78-79F).

now the question is why the parameters are so high? i only tested each once as its night already. is it possible the brand new carribsea south seas rock is affecting the params? any help is appreciated.

I also use reef crystals. They are generally close to numbers this high. Yours are a little higher than I see. Have you checked the salinity? If it’s high so will these parameters.

eggplantparrot · Feb 20, 2022

tmorford said:
I also use reef crystals. They are generally close to numbers this high. Yours are a little higher than I see. Have you checked the salinity? If it’s high so will these parameters.

Thx for trying to help, but you replied to my post from 3½ years ago