natural sea Salt .v. store bought ???

[afss]

I know that you obviously can't use table salt for the reef tanks, but I am wondering what the difference is between the salt we buy at the pet store is, and Sea salt that you can buy in bulk? The natural sea salt that i have seen for cooking purposes claims that it has been harvested from naturally evaporated sea water in ponds. Is there any chemical difference or is it just a refineing thing, kinda like southdown versus caribsea etc.
thanks
Scott

[ October 24, 2001: Message edited by: afss ]</p>
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[afss]

anyone?
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[kervina]

FWIW - we checked this out in a Chem class I was in years ago. Chemically, the "sea salt" we got from a gourmet food store and the table salt were very close to each other. The marine aquarium mix was very different from the two.

The Prof was demonstrating to us how the same thing "salt" could be radically different.

It was before my fish keeping days, otherwise I would probably remember what mix we tested.

 

[Anonymous]

I imagine there's a lot of stuff in the seasalt that you wouldn't want in your tank. Somehow, I don't think quality control is a big part of the operation.

ty

 

[AnotherGoldenTeapot]

I imagine that the "real" salt will have dead (dried) plankton in it and nutrients that normally occur in seawater that you don't want in an aquarium e.g. silicate.

The proof for a given brand would be in the testing - you try it and tell us how it goes

 

[afss]

I thought about that, but I'm not quite ready to risk my 90 gallon to that type of test

I have to buy a 5-10 gallon tank as a hatch out for fry, so i may buy an extra then and try it.

The nitrates etc I wouldn't think would be much different than using natural seawater in your tank, same would go for silicates. My main concern was chemically like calcium, trace elements, etc. not so much the nitrates. I would also think that any mature system with sufficent live rock/dsb would be able to handel that, but I could be wrong.. only guessing

thanks
Scott
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