Switching salt brands possibly

[Surfside74]

I have a 60 gallon cube and sump. I run only a skimmer, and filter sock, and do a ten gallon water change each week. That's it. Tank is doing excellent. Codals are looking good and growing. Before I go any further , I know the old adage if it's not broke don't fix it but anyway....i have been looking at the triton method but am not sure as of yet. So if I stay with my current weekly water changes I have thought of switching from red sea coral pro salt to instant ocean. I know I will then have to add cal, alk, and mag to the water when I mix it up. Main reason is I can get a whole year supply of instant ocean for the same price of one bucket of red sea because instant ocean is on sale. What do you guys think? Stay with what I got or make the switch? Thanks for your help.

 

[Antics]

Wait what? A years supply of IO for the price of one bucket? I'm assuming you do very infrequent water changes? I'm not even sure what the point of switching salts is if that's the case. Unless I'm misunderstanding something here.

 

[Scorpius]

Why change when you have success. This hobby is about stability. Stick with one salt and don't change. I've been using ESV since 2013.

 

[Surfside74]

Wait what? A years supply of IO for the price of one bucket? I'm assuming you do very infrequent water changes? I'm not even sure what the point of switching salts is if that's the case. Unless I'm misunderstanding something here.

Yeah wwc has in store special of instant ocean. $28 for 200 gallon box. Can get 3 boxes or 600 gallons worth for $17 more than one bucket of 175 gallon red sea. That's what got me thinking but stability is important and don't want to screw the tank up.

 

[LostInTheDark]

if it's not broke don't fix it

^^^^
This!

If everything is growing you can easily make up the price difference by selling a few frags. IO is notorious for inconsistent ALK values. Why add a chance for a disaster when everything is going so good.
Stop agonizing over changing things and sit back and enjoy your tank.

 

[ReefingwithO]

I would get the IO and buffer it up. This hobby is expensive. A year's supply of salt vs one bucket. That's too good a deal to pass up.

You do a 10 gallon water change per week on a 60 gallon tank? That's a lot of work and very expensive. How fast do you go through a bucket of coral pro?

 

[nautical_nathaniel]

While I can understand the benefits of not having to pay as much for salt, I can concur with everyone else that stability is key in this hobby and that it may be better to just stick with the Red Sea salt. IO also has some quality control issues that range from inconsistent batches and sometimes not mixing properly.

 

[Jamie7907]

Go with IO buffering kh, ca and mag up is easy. Stability is about levels not brand name and there’s a reason more people use IO than all other brands combined. Now they’re making it for DFS too I believe. It’s costs about $20 to make a 200 Gallon box of salt for me at the shop and we buy the raw supplies a pallet at a time I’d imagine that cost goes down significantly when you buy a whole truckload at a time and there’s no way to justify an extra $50 or more because of a few grams of baking soda. Everyone should be checking their levels before water changes anyway because you never have a bad batch until you do.

 

[Surfside74]

I would get the IO and buffer it up. This hobby is expensive. A year's supply of salt vs one bucket. That's too good a deal to pass up.

You do a 10 gallon water change per week on a 60 gallon tank? That's a lot of work and very expensive. How fast do you go through a bucket of coral pro?

I go through about 3 buckets a year. I keep all levels up in tanks, corals are happy, and I do not have to dose. So with the price of the instant ocean, then the cal, mag, and alk from brs, I would probably be saving only about $50 a year. Thought it would be greater but I guess not. So for $50 I will probably stay doing what I have been doing and not switch since the tank is happy. Unless someone can give me another good reason too.

 

[Potatohead]

It's not $50 savings if you have to start adding magnesium and calcium to a different salt to compensate.

 

[DSC reef]

Id stay with the red sea if your not having issues. Like stated above, youll be dosing so take that into account with the reasoning of money saving.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I know I will then have to add cal, alk, and mag to the water when I mix it up.

This is not necessarily the case. When I was using IO, it almost always mixed up to 1,400ppm Mg, 10 - 11 dKh and 425ppm Ca. Always test when you open a new box to make sure you know what to expect, but in most cases the Ca/Alk/Mg are very high with IO. In fact, in my case, they were too high. That's one of the reasons I switched to Red Sea blue bucket.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

IO won’t need any alkalinity added to it. There’s almost no one who wants more than it has, and most reefers these days want less.

 

[Surfside74]

IO won’t need any alkalinity added to it. There’s almost no one who wants more than it has, and most reefers these days want less.

I was wondering when you were going to show up!! What do you think Randy?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was wondering when you were going to show up!! What do you think Randy?

I changed water very slowly over substantial periods every day, so it wouldn't matter what the IO alk that I used was, it just gets averaged into the "demand".

I used normal IO for 20 years because, IMO, its lowish calcium level meshes perfectly with the limewater that I used for alk and calcium (since limewater very slowly tends to raise calcium).

I also do not like organics in my new salt water (vitamins, etc. ) because I want it to be able to be used for a month or more without bothering to aerate it.

 

[Jamie7907]

Something else worth mentioning here is that BRS isn’t necessarily where you’re going to save money. I can buy a 50lb bag af mag chloride for $20 vs their 5 gal bucket that’s not even 50lb for $85. At that rate I can buy 4x as much which imo saves $$$

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Something else worth mentioning here is that BRS isn’t necessarily where you’re going to save money. I can buy a 50lb bag af mag chloride for $20 vs their 5 gal bucket that’s not even 50lb for $85. At that rate I can buy 4x as much which imo saves $$$

FWIW, I determined long ago that adding Dowflake calcium chloride and MAGflake magnesium chloride to a salt mix to boost the calcium and magnesium actually made it cheaper to reach the same salinity, because those materials were actually much cheaper per unit of weight than the cheapest salt mix.

 

[reefwiser]

So many times people cite saving money and it ends up costly people money to try and save money. Sooooooooooooo many times I have seen this happen. I mix my own salt mix now using straight chemicals mainly because I became tired of all the junk that came with the prepackaged mixes.

 

[Jamie7907]

And I’d imagine you save quite a bit of money in the process. If BRS was charging say $30 for an equivalent amount sure but it’s more than 4x as much $ for less material. I make my own salt as well and it comes out to around $25 for 200 gallons worth I believe and I control everything that goes into it.

 

[Surfside74]

Ok. On the risk of sounding stupid how do you make your own salt?