Tropic Marin Pro Reef, bye bye

[X-37B]

I agree, I’m going to stop water changes totally and screw all the salt companies

Funny as I do no scheduled water changes on my 120 or 45 frag.
20 months on the 120 and only 3 10 gallon WC's.. I am doing 1 10gal every 4 months now.
45 frag system has had no WC since startup 14 months ago. Its going on the same once every 4 months soon.

So thats all off topic.
I have been using ESV for 5 years now and am very happy with it.
I do not go through much since I do minimal WC.
What I like about it is I can mix it up and its ready to go in 15 minutes.
However I do need to lower alk from 9.5 to 7 so that takes some extra time.
I am planning a upgrade of 3x my 120 and may use IO regular. I used it for years and it worked fine. If I set up a auto WC system I will have no problem using IO.
Stabilty with whatever you use is more important than what salt you use.
Pick one and stay with it.

 

[Hincapiej4]

I use tm synbiotic because of all the extra stuff they put in it. If it were for that, I'd still be using red sea blue bucket. Matter of fact, i still have a black and a blue in storage.

I've seen such a better quality of life for my tank since the switch to tm synbiotic. But that could just be me too, i also use afr

 

[Mywifeisgunnakillme]

Having a salt mix clean is worth a bit of cost. Nothing worse than having your mixing station grundged up with sludge or a brown film deposited over every surface, I am looking at you AquaForest! Pay attention to how long the manufacturer says you can store the mixed saltwater. AquaForest's recommendation is ridiculously short for their suggested use by.

Dennis

Instant Ocean is cheap and clean; there is no residue... not one little bit.

Dont get me wrong, i dose alkalinity and calcium and the like... even use tropic marine products to do so...

But a base salt is a base salt... adding your own trace or other minerals if you want is both waaaay cheaper and far more customizable...

Over time, and ive been at this well over a decade, $30-$35 salt buckets lets you budget more corals and goodies.

 

[William Morris]

Instant Ocean is cheap and clean; there is no residue... not one little bit.

Dont get me wrong, i dose alkalinity and calcium and the like... even use tropic marine products to do so...

But a base salt is a base salt... adding your own trace or other minerals if you want is both waaaay cheaper and far more customizable...

Over time, and ive been at this well over a decade, $30-$35 salt buckets lets you budget more corals and goodies.

What trace elements and minerals are you dosing?

 

[Ippyroy]

Instant Ocean is cheap and clean; there is no residue... not one little bit.

Dont get me wrong, i dose alkalinity and calcium and the like... even use tropic marine products to do so...

But a base salt is a base salt... adding your own trace or other minerals if you want is both waaaay cheaper and far more customizable...

Over time, and ive been at this well over a decade, $30-$35 salt buckets lets you budget more corals and goodies.

The answer is right there. 10 years of experience. I am a noob, only a year in. I am still having issues maintaining the Big 3 at a consistent level. There is no way I would attempt to dose minor and/trace elements. Experience and free time are very critical in choosing your salt mix. TM and similar is great for beginners and IO is better for mature reefers. IMHO

 

[SaltyWaffles]

This salt has been a hot topic the past few weeks!

The summary from what I can gather: Red Sea Coral Pro or ESV B-Ionic seem like good substitutes, while Fritz should be avoided like it's carrying Covid

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/tropic-marin-pro-substitutes.807293/

Why should you avoid Fritz salt? I have only heard positive responses to it.

 

[Mywifeisgunnakillme]

The answer is right there. 10 years of experience. I am a noob, only a year in. I am still having issues maintaining the Big 3 at a consistent level. There is no way I would attempt to dose minor and/trace elements. Experience and free time are very critical in choosing your salt mix. TM and similar is great for beginners and IO is better for mature reefers. IMHO

Beginners are doomed if they are starting with corals that need trace minerals and the like....just saying.

If you're new, get easy corals. Instant Ocean is all you need and youll save money and have success... do otherwise at your own peril... (you'll kill corals...)

Also, SPS, acros, and the like do not need Tropic Marine... when small small they just need a stabile tank... which noobies will struggle at...

 

[Ippyroy]

Beginners are doomed if they are starting with corals that need trace minerals and the like....just saying.

If you're new, get easy corals. Instant Ocean is all you need and youll save money and have success... do otherwise at your own peril... (you'll kill corals...)

Also, SPS, acros, and the like do not need Tropic Marine... when small small they just need a stabile tank... which noobies will struggle at...

I have several SPS corals and they are doing great. Lots of research. I have coralline growing nice and thick all over the place. My SPS are doing better than my LPS. I haven't killed a stick yet except when I had a rock tumble and snap a couple off. They were encrusting beautifully before that happened.

 

[melanotaenia]

If one wants NSW parameters then TM Pro delivers this better than any other salt, at least in my experience. I believe that one gets what they pay for with salt, but I know many will beg to differ.

But as others have mentioned, thousands of amazing reefs are thriving using all kinds of salt. If you are having problems, salt is likely not your only issue.

That said, I use Tropic Marin Pro exclusively but only have a 50 gallon reef so it is not as cost prohibitive for me as others with large reef tanks. My main reason is the parameters it mixes to that allows me to just dose two part daily to keep my Acros happy.

For what it is worth, 20 years ago I was keeping mixed reefs, and had great success with Reef Crystals.

 

[ZoWhat]

.......

 

[ZoWhat]

Let the tropic Marin fanboys tell it, rpm causes Instant Monti death, along with tuberculosis and dengue fever.

I'm sure if you dont know what you're doing by mixing salt and immediately introducing to your water column when its still cloudy, all kinds of bad things happen.

 

[Duffer]

Why should you avoid Fritz salt? I have only heard positive responses to it.

Do a little more research, they are folks out there that had bad experiences with fritz salt..

I was one of them no matter how many different boxes I bought thru one year the parameters were always all over the place. the lfs that was selling it me had some bad tank crashes do to using fritz salt and stopped selling it... I’m sure there are many folks out there that had success with fritz but for me it’s too risky and for that reason there are plenty of other salt that are better

 

[Loosechangereef]

i use tropicmarin pro, 7.5 dkh average, note: my sps lookgreat 2 days after wc even spurts of growth, i just watch my alk

 

[RobB'z Reef]

I just keep 4-5 large buckets on hand at all times to weather the droughts. Use one, replace one (when available). Combined with my no water change strategy, works gud.

 

[X-37B]

I just keep 4-5 large buckets on hand at all times to weather the droughts. Use one, replace one (when available). Combined with my no water change strategy, works gud.

Care to elaborate on your no water change strategy. I do the same with excellent results.

 

[ZoWhat]

Do a little more research, they are folks out there that had bad experiences with fritz salt..

There are also ppl out there who can't toast bread without screwing it up

Fritz uses some super fine grain elements and if you keep product in longterm storage, you need to roll-your-bucket to remix the drymix every 3mos.

These are the BASICS folks

 

[uhgster1]

I’ve been using Reef Crystals from the start. This tank is on its third year. I think it’s all brand hype.

Save your money and stick with one brand. Once your water is mixed you’re trying to keep it in different parameters anyway. It’s like Pepsi vs Coke.

 

[RobB'z Reef]

Care to elaborate on your no water change strategy. I do the same with excellent results.

Just trying to keep my inputs and exports balanced. I've got a fairly new tank but I'm not adding fish faster than I can develop my export methods. I don't feed light by any means for what's in there now. I'm just dosing kalk for now, I've had to boost my Mg once recently but you know that doesn't get depleted nearly at the rate the other two do. I may look at trace elements down the road as my coral pollution grows. Just feeling my way thru this. But after 4 months and not a single water change so far things are looking good. Just started up my refugium, we'll see how that goes, then I'll start adding more fish.

 

[Butcher333]

One of the LFS in the area was using Fritz and nearly lost the whole store. They don’t sell Fritz anymore. Testing confirmed it was the salt.
This sort of proves that marketing and promotion are no reason to use something. Salt isn’t just salt.

 

[Drendo]

If one wants NSW parameters then TM Pro delivers this better than any other salt, at least in my experience. I believe that one gets what they pay for with salt, but I know many will beg to differ.

But as others have mentioned, thousands of amazing reefs are thriving using all kinds of salt. If you are having problems, salt is likely not your only issue.

That said, I use Tropic Marin Pro exclusively but only have a 50 gallon reef so it is not as cost prohibitive for me as others with large reef tanks. My main reason is the parameters it mixes to that allows me to just dose two part daily to keep my Acros happy.

For what it is worth, 20 years ago I was keeping mixed reefs, and had great success with Reef Crystals.

That’s all good and fine, but if you can’t get it you can’t get it.