Interesting info about some salt mixes

[dragon0121]

FYI
Look here!
Some interesting information about salt mixes.

 

[Anonymous]

interesting however I'm patiently waiting for Salt-Vital to hit the market....

:roll:

 

[0db]

I'm not sure what the :roll: is for, I thought that was a very interesting article. We do have a lot of semi-long term mortality in this hobby, and we all blame it on cyanide poisoning. What if we're poisoning the fish ourselves? I don't think it's all that far-fetched. That article is enough to make me look into switching to natural seawater (marine biology program at UCSB has a thoroughly filtered water intake a few miles offshore which they use for their experimends and which hobbyists can take freely, I think it's worth a shot).

 

[LA-Lawman]

He is commenting on the InFamous Marc Weis products....

 

[danmhippo]

Assuming the data is conclusive, then IO and Coralife has so much more heavy metal in the mix?

 

[buff1]

I'm a little unhappy. I was a customer of Bio-Sea until I read on this board from one of the many "experts" that the operator of that company Michael Del Prete(or something like that) was a fraud. The actual quote was something like "he is the Mark Weiss of salt mixes." According to these tests, his product is actually as good as he claims. I went out and bought two 200gallon buckets of Instant Ocean :x Oh well I've always said that to get value from the internet, you have to be a very discriminating reader. For every nugget of truth and wisdom, you must discard a dozen nuggets of caca.

 

[MattM]

The gist of Tom's comment is:

1) Dr. Shimek has, in some ways, become a spokesperson for Marc Weiss products -- his quotes are in the recent MW ads, and MW Companies published Shimek's most recent book (link with publishing data).

2) Dr. Shimek has published a lot of stuff recently on the problems with various salt mixes.

Tom has predicted that adding these two facts together may mean that Marc Weiss is about to start producing a salt mix, endorsed by Dr. Shimek.

Time will tell...

 

[MattM]

I was a customer of Bio-Sea until I read on this board from one of the many "experts" that the operator of that company Michael Del Prete(or something like that) was a fraud.

I'm sure whoever said that was referring to the so-called "S-15" report that he continuously hawks. It is years old, the methodology is flawed, the results do not agree with the independant analysis done by Marlin Atkinson and Craig Bingman, and it suspiciously reports that the only decent salts are the ones made by the company that funded the test.

All this says nothing about his salt, only his business tactics.

As far as Shimek's article... Don't bet the farm on any one test. Wait for independent testing and confirmation. When two or more unassociated people use differing methodologies and get similar results, then you can start to take it for more than face value -- like the testing done on Miracle Mud or Combi-San.

So far we have three different studies on salt and they all reach different conclusions. Nothing has been proven yet.

 

[reefNewbie]

besides seawater then, whats the best salt?

 

[Anonymous]

Now this test shows that Bio-sea and crystal sea are the best. IO has a lot of metal in it. Dr. Shimeks article shows this as does the test done by aquacraft i believe(not sure who did this test but it is on there site). I think i will sell my 3 bags of IO and buy Bio-sea marinemix. I am just lucky i did not yet set up my tank and mix the IO.
I think this test is the real deal.

 

[reefNewbie]

so it would be best to order this stuff? Forty Fathoms/Crystal Sea Salt Mixture, 150 Gallons for Bioassay Research

 

[buff1]

I didn't know about the relationship between Shimek and Weiss. Very interesting. If they were trying to come up with a product that they can "prove" is significantly better than other synthetic mixes, this test ruins their business plan. This test, if accepted as legitimate and not purposely scewed demonstrates that two different salt mixes are approximately as good as natural sea water for the purpose of rearing urchin larvae. I personally would accept his results as factual. The secondary question, however, is whether the ability to keep urchiin larvae alive is a good indicator for the ability to keep a reef tank healthy. I don't know the answer to that. It would seem like a good test. The other analysis done by Atkinson et al, is pretty much useless to me. Chemical analysis is fine, but it is easy to lose track of what's important. For example, one mix might be perfectly matched to natural sea water in every respect except one. Looking through the report, one might conclude that such a mix would be an excellent choice. If the one parameter is crucial, however, you would have made a poor choice. I think empirical testing is more useful for what I want to know. Which salt will give me the most succesfull reef tank? I would love to see some further independant tests like Dr. Shimeks to see if a conclusion can be drawn. In the meantime, I'm pretty sure that Instant Ocean is not going in my new tank.

BTW, I agree that the "s-15" report is hokey and i thought so the first time I visited aquacraft's site, but that doesn't mean the product is bad. Just like with miracle mud, the fact that the marketing and pricing makes it look like snake oil doesn't mean that it doesn't work.

 

[liquid]

Ok, let's take a step back here. You are not going to kill your tank by using IO. Until I see independent testing verify Ron's findings I will take the report with a grain of salt. It's some interesting work, but to be conclusive there needs to be follow up testing by 3rd parties to verify the results.

Also, remember that sea urchin embryo are some of the most delicate organisms out there, which is why he chose them for this test. Are corals as delicate as sea urchin embryo? Is there a correlation between our tank health and sea urchin embryo mortality? These links need to be established and I do not feel that he has established the links between the two. He's presented some interesting data, but he's also stating some things on a leap of faith.

In addition, I find it interesting to note that one hobbyist provided Ron with a gallon of his own IO / RODI tank water (Hobbyist A) and this particular tank water showed significant difference compared to Ron's freshly mixed IO salt (NSW = 37.1, IO (new) = 4.0, Hobbyist A = 24.9 -- # plutei surviving). This data seemed to be glossed over and not taken into consideration when he stated his opinions about the commonly available salt mixes. It could be that complete dissolution of the IO salt had not occurred by the time Ron ran his test or the salt mix hadn't stabilized out prior to testing. If it was indeed tank water right out of the guy's tank, the difference could be also attributed to chelation of whatever substance was causing mortality to the plutei. IMHO I believe he should have had some additional testing done on all of the samples of water he tested to find out why there was anomolies between the samples with regards to plutei survivability. There were 7 samples of water to test and he's had water tested in the past with hobbyist donations. However he did not have these tested. I know these tests are not exactly cheap, but he was able to get them tested in the past with hobbyist donations.

This is part of the problem with the hobby...one article comes out about something and people jump on the bandwagon as a knee jerk reaction. Please think thru things and really think about what they are saying.

Shane

 

[Anonymous]

fwiw:

i've used 3 different salt mixes, and sometimes even combined them.not only did i not notice any immediate short term negative reactions, my main salt mix performed fairly well

many people have been using the more popular mixes for a very long time-with absolutely NO indications of any kind of toxicity in well established tanks

nor has any conclusive measurement been established (that i'm aware of, anyway) of toxic levels of metals, etc. building up in water columns, sand, lr, that affects tank inhabitants

one of the implied results of some of dr. shimeks work is that many long term tanks should have crashed along time ago :wink:

they haven't

 

[buff1]

Vitz, I don't think that is implied at all. If you currently have a succesfull tank and believe this test is 100% accurate and relevant, you would have to believe that your tank would be even better off if you used a better salt. Liquid, I think he did provide a few theories for why he got mixed results from the hobbyists water. I am paraphrasing big time, but he said that the biological specifics of a given tank could certainly change the water. IE, a certain cyanobacteria lives in Hobbyist A's tank that fixes the excess heavy metals. By no means am I jumping on the bandwagon. I do want to have every possible chance to succeed, so these tests are useful and relevant. Like you, I would like to see this test duplicated by other entities, but with an almost complete absence of reliable information a single test result carries a lot of weight.

 

[Anonymous]

Vitz, I don't think that is implied at all. If you currently have a succesfull tank and believe this test is 100% accurate and relevant, you would have to believe that your tank would be even better off if you used a better salt. Liquid, I think he did provide a few theories for why he got mixed results from the hobbyists water. I am paraphrasing big time, but he said that the biological specifics of a given tank could certainly change the water. IE, a certain cyanobacteria lives in Hobbyist A's tank that fixes the excess heavy metals. By no means am I jumping on the bandwagon. I do want to have every possible chance to succeed, so these tests are useful and relevant. Like you, I would like to see this test duplicated by other entities, but with an almost complete absence of reliable information a single test result carries a lot of weight.

first contention of shimek's is that salt mixes contain toxic levels of toxic substances

second contention is that these substances 'sink' into the system via the sandbed, rock, etc.


third contention is that the sb needs to be replaced periodically to avoid this accumulation


conclusion (implied) is: if one keeps using the presently available salt mixes, and never changes the sb, or lr-the tank as a system will become toxic

pure horse hockey :wink:


(the time frame suggested/implied by shimek, iirc, is app 4-5 yrs-there are so many 10+ yr old systems out there that never had any such problem, so as to indicate , to me, at least, that this is nothing but anecdotal conjecture-period)

 

[madrefkepr]

The other thing I found interesting, was the 3 different results using IO (Ron's mix, hobbyist A, and hobbyist B). I think the same thing should have been done with all the other salts tested, to find the variance. Otherwise, the test is fundamentally flawed, isn't it? I mean, if there is so much variation with one salt mix from 3 sources, would you not expect the same with the other salts?

 

[MattM]

I would love to have an extensive, rigorous, independent chemical analysis done.

Take every salt on the market today -- three different samples of each, seperated by at least a month and/or ordered from differnet sources so you're sure to get at least 2 different batches. Compare to at least three different NSW samples from three different locations. Compare within each brand for consistancy and against each other and NSW for content.

A quick "back of the envelope" calculation says this will cost us about $14,500 to do.

Not going to happen anytime soon...

 

[cvye]

• If given a choice between using a salt that kills sea urchin larvae and one that doesn't, I'd take the one that doesn't.

• If shown analyses that one salt contains lethal levels of copper in it and one doesn't, I'd also choose the latter.

Hmm, seems pretty simple...

 

[Mogo]

I bought a bag of IO yesterday for the first time. I was going to try it just for a change. I'm going to take it back to my lfs and stick with the Kent mix that I have used from the outset. I'm not saying Kent is better or safer (it could be worse), but if it ain't broke, don't fix it in my case. At least I have a "constant" there.

These scientific articles with experienced feedback and discussion as on this thread will improve the success of our hobby.