Switching salt brands possibly

[fishbox]

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

That's not a stupid question at all. I would like that recipe as well. I'm curious how much the raw materials cost and at what quantities. Like you, I don't go through much salt as I only do 20% water changes bi weekly in my 40B. So I wouldn't want to have to buy and store 3yrs worth of raw materials just to make the little bit of salt that I'm gonna use for that year.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

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

That's not a stupid question at all. I would like that recipe as well. I'm curious how much the raw materials cost and at what quantities. Like you, I don't go through much salt as I only do 20% water changes bi weekly in my 40B. So I wouldn't want to have to buy and store 3yrs worth of raw materials just to make the little bit of salt that I'm gonna use for that year.

I work part time at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, and we've been rolling our own salt mix for years. We buy the individual components and combine them to make artificial seawater. We exclude some of the more costly elements like Au and Ag, but for the most part we include nearly everything that's in natural seawater. What we're finding after doing this for a long time is that it's just not cheaper to buy the separate parts and make our own mix. We're in the process of looking at supply contracts with one of the major salt suppliers because we expect a commercial mix will actually be cheaper than mixing it ourselves. Ironically, you would expect the DIY approach to be the most cost-effective in bulk, such as at a large aquarium like the National Aquarium. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case.

 

[fishbox]

I work part time at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, and we've been rolling our own salt mix for years. We buy the individual components and combine them to make artificial seawater. We exclude some of the more costly elements like Au and Ag, but for the most part we include nearly everything that's in natural seawater. What we're finding after doing this for a long time is that it's just not cheaper to buy the separate parts and make our own mix. We're in the process of looking at supply contracts with one of the major salt suppliers because we expect a commercial mix will actually be cheaper than mixing it ourselves. Ironically, you would expect the DIY approach to be the most cost-effective in bulk, such as at a large aquarium like the National Aquarium. Unfortunately, this does not appear to be the case.

Yeah if it's not making any Financial sense for such a big fish in the pond like you guys that it's definitely not going to make Financial sense for a little tadpole like me. And probably not worth the hassle at such a small scale.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You can certainly add a lot more, but here's a basic recipe for the major and the biggest of the minor ions:

What is Seawater? by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/rhf/index.php

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/rhf/index.php#21

An Artificial Seawater Recipe

For those who are interested, the following artificial seawater recipe is taken from "Chemical Oceanography" by Frank Millero. It makes a recipe that matches 35 ppt seawater in terms of major ions, but does not try to match all minor and trace elements, most of which will be present as impurities in the major elements.

23.98 g sodium chloride
5.029 g magnesium chloride
4.01 g sodium sulfate
1.14 g calcium chloride
0.699 g potassium chloride
0.172 g sodium bicarbonate
0.100 g potassium bromide
0.0254 g boric acid
0.0143 g strontium chloride
0.0029 g sodium fluoride
Water to 1 kg total weight.

 

[miyags]

I believe your tank will do just fine with IO. As long as you keep doing your 10 gal a week water changes.

 

[jt17]

I switched to IO six months ago after triton revealed some elements in my salt brand that were not supposed to be there. Jason Fox and WWC have been using this salt for years and I think we can all agree these guys know How to grow corals. WWC adds one cup of brightwell mag per 50 gal bag of IO. Alk and ca are handled by the calcium reactor.
A couple months after I switched to IO I took my family to the Atlanta aquarium where I saw this.

Knowing they test and retest everything that goes into their water I feel more confident about the consistency and purity of IO.

That's an incredible sale on salt and I hope I didn't clean WWC out when I was in on Tuesday. My 850 gets wet in a couple weeks so I had to stock up.

 

[reefwiser]

One can use anything they want to use salt wise. I just like to make sure what I am getting every batch of salt. People also cite so and so uses this or that. In large system one can get a way with a lot. When one goes they as much water as WWC does it is not the same as some one with a small 40 gallon tank. Large volumes of water react differently than small volumes of water.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

You can certainly add a lot more, but here's a basic recipe for the major and the biggest of the minor ions:

What is Seawater? by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/rhf/index.php

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/rhf/index.php#21

An Artificial Seawater Recipe

For those who are interested, the following artificial seawater recipe is taken from "Chemical Oceanography" by Frank Millero. It makes a recipe that matches 35 ppt seawater in terms of major ions, but does not try to match all minor and trace elements, most of which will be present as impurities in the major elements.

23.98 g sodium chloride
5.029 g magnesium chloride
4.01 g sodium sulfate
1.14 g calcium chloride
0.699 g potassium chloride
0.172 g sodium bicarbonate
0.100 g potassium bromide
0.0254 g boric acid
0.0143 g strontium chloride
0.0029 g sodium fluoride
Water to 1 kg total weight.

Thanks for this Randy. Do you think this recipe would be suitable for use in reef aquaria? Do you believe the lack of trace elements would be of concern long term?

EDIT: Or, to put it more succinctly, would you feel comfortable using this on your own tank?

 

[that Reef Guy]

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.

Yeah, the reason is it is easy to come by and the cheapest salt out there.

Has nothing to do with quality.

More people drive Ford than Ferrari (I would much rather have the Ferrari, wouldn't you).

I wouldn't use IO or RC if it was FREE !!!!!!!!

 

[Jamie7907]

No I don’t think you understand that’s what it’s costs any company not just IO. Basically you’re putting lipstick on a pig with different salt brands other than qc of the levels in the salt it’s all pretty much the same. Sodium chloride is sodium chloride, magnesium is magnesium. It’s not like they have designer mines where you magically get better raw materials. You’re paying for brand name mostly. Reminds me of black sheep I think with Chris Farley where he says I can put a piece of crap in a box with a lifetime warranty but it’s still just a point of sale in a box. Comparing salt mixes to cars is apples to oranges. There are billions of dollars that go into r&d for cars especially on Ferrari’s side where they’re topping 200mph where fords are meant to be reliable daily drivers. You show me a salt, any salt that’s going to grow my reef at twice the rate of IO and your argument might hold water but you can’t because it doesn’t work that way. Salt is salt other than levels of the elements within there’s really not much difference between the brands.

 

[Violetdasy]

I also use Red Sea salt. its real salt water and the other is not you will end up paying more in supplements than the salt itself. its a bad idea to switch from real salt to fake salt you will end up having some bad issue crop up

 

[reefwiser]

If you want a really clean salt use ESV salt it is basically a component salt mix that anyone can use. Just look in the bucket after mixing no brown sludge in the bucket.
http://www.esvco.com/products.html

 

[JP79]

Why would you switch from one of the best salts to the worse. Maybe not gif worse. But almost the worse. Anyways. Trying to save money on salt isn't going to help you in anyway. If anything penny pinching in this hobby always ends up costing you more. But I will say if you do switch. Which you could and can but in your case I would not. But if you do you need to switch slowly over a bunch of water changes spaced out. So over a month or more add like 25% new salt to 75% old. The next water change do 50%-50% and so on. Sometimes switching salts causes a lot of headaches. Good luck but I wouldn't. Your using awesome salt and like I said saving a few pennies only causes one thing and in most things in the world and especially in this hobby. You get what you pay for.

 

[fishbox]

. Reminds me of black sheep I think with Chris Farley where he says I can put a piece of **** in a box with a lifetime warranty but it’s still just a point of sale in a box.

This is freaking hilarious but so true [emoji12]

 

[rtparty]

This is freaking hilarious but so true [emoji12]

That would be from Tommy Boy and that's not exactly how it goes but close enough.

It's from the scene where he says, "You can get a good look at a Tbone by sticking your head up a bull's ***, but wouldn't you rather take the butcher's word for it?"

To the OP, if you look around you will see there is a TON of success with IO salt. I'd be willing to bet it is the most successful salt to be used in the hobby, ever. At $28 a box, it would already be in my possession no questions asked!

 

[azreeftank]

This topic is similar to a post I read a while back. Someone was trying to save a few cents a year by feeding his tangs lettuce instead of Nori in a effort to save money. While lettuce is fine .... aka IO why would I spend hundreds $$$ on tangs or thousands of dollars on corals and endless hours of my time in maintenance to then look to save a few pennies on lettuce and IO. I used reef crystals at the start and to see the brown slime in my mixing tanks after doing water changes made me sick. I switched to RS Coral Pro salt and have never looked back. Yes it’s more expensive but My tank and corals are happy. Why look to save a few bucks when in the large scheme of things it’s an expensive hobby no matter what. Salt and food are critical to success so I will not go cheap on either.

 

[azreeftank]

This topic is similar to a post I read a while back. Someone was trying to save a few cents a year by feeding his tangs lettuce instead of Nori in a effort to save money. While lettuce is fine .... aka IO why would I spend hundreds $$$ on tangs or thousands of dollars on corals and endless hours of my time in maintenance to then look to save a few pennies on lettuce and IO. I used RC at the start and to see the brown slime in my mixing tanks after doing water changes made me sick. I switched to RS Coral Pro salt and have never looked back. Yes it’s more expensive but My tank and corals are happy. Why look to save a few bucks when in the large scheme of things it’s an expensive hobby no matter what. Salt and food are critical to success so I will not go cheap on either.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

This topic is similar to a post I read a while back. Someone was trying to save a few cents a year by feeding his tangs lettuce instead of Nori in a effort to save money. While lettuce is fine .... aka IO why would I spend hundreds $$$ on tangs or thousands of dollars on corals and endless hours of my time in maintenance to then look to save a few pennies on lettuce and IO. I used reef crystals at the start and to see the brown slime in my mixing tanks after doing water changes made me sick. I switched to RS Coral Pro salt and have never looked back. Yes it’s more expensive but My tank and corals are happy. Why look to save a few bucks when in the large scheme of things it’s an expensive hobby no matter what. Salt and food are critical to success so I will not go cheap on either.

Just curious what you think is better in more expensive salt mixes than in normal IO?

 

[rtparty]

Just curious what you think is better in more expensive salt mixes than in normal IO?

A little splash of marketing? [emoji3]

 

[azreeftank]

Just curious what you think is better in more expensive salt mixes than in normal IO?

Red Sea mixes clear in 10-15 minutes and more stable parameters from all my testing. When I first bought my new mixing tanks in 3 months of doing water changes with brand new tanks the inside of them were brown From the slime/crap left behind using IO. I switched to Coral pro and in the 3 years since using it my mixing tanks are still white and look new and my parameters are stable. Again I’m not saying IO is crap my point is of your happy with one product and things are fine why change over a few $ savings and risk thousands of $$$ in livestock.