The best sea salt to use for reefs

[Jackson919]

Hello All,

What is the preferred sea salt to use in the reef tank? Is there one salt that is better over another for certain species or families of corals?

I have been using Instant Ocean since I used to have a FOWLR tank and have not changed since adding a few corals? Is Instant Ocean as good as any other, does it come down to personal preference with the major brands?

Thanks for any help.

Regards,
BLC

 

[jandree22]

mostly personal loyalty to a brand. Instant Ocean seems to be the popular choice among most... no gimmicks, inexpensive, and pretty good stuff. FWIW, I personally use Kent Sea Salt. Only bad ones IME are Coralife Salt and Reef Crystals, which is an expensive, glorified Instant Ocean.

Heard some good stuff about Oceanic salt, although I've never used it myself.

*EDIT* - I should mention that I have no personal experience with Reef Crystals and haven't heard any particularly bad experiences. Simply that some don't find the additional benefit worth it over the less costly IO.

 

[Len]

This is a hotly debated topic. I've personally found success with IO, Reef Crystals ("enhanced" IO), and Tropic Marin. I haven't had a compelling reason to switch from these three because I've never encountered any problems using these for the past 2 decades.

As far as I know, there really isn't one salt better for a specific group of corals then another. I mostly use Reef Crystals and TM Pro because they're enhanced with Ca and Mg.

 

[jandree22]

do a search on 'salt' and you'll have enough reading material to last you through winter :lol:

 

[Anonymous]

I switched to natural seawater about 7 years ago, and haven't mixed salt since.

 

[liquid]

I've tried Instant Ocean and Tropic Marin and have had equal success with both.

Shane

 

[Anonymous]

I used Instant ocean without terribly many problems... then I realized it didn't have sh*t for calcium.

 

[Jackson919]

I've noticed that as well...I've added a kalk reactor to my 55 gallon...

 

[Anonymous]

Instant Ocean for me...I haven't seen any reason to try anything else.

 

[EmilyB]

Kent.

 

[cklayko2000]

I use Oceanic it tends to mix much faster

 

[Anonymous]

I use IO. I've tried Coralife salt and The critters didn't look to great when I used it. I cannot imagine it was coincidence.

 

[coralfarmin]

huh :?

I have used IO and Coralife forever

both seem to work fine for me

the IO *might* mix faster for use

but I like the free Coralife T-shirts when I get buckets

If IO had T's I'd get them 2 though :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

The IO did mix faster and the CL had a lower PH. Some reason I noticed a difference, in a bad way when I used CL. JME.

 

[jandree22]

the IO *might* mix faster for use

but I like the free Coralife T-shirts when I get buckets

If IO had T's I'd get them 2 though :wink:

perfect example of a sales gimmick... the product should sell itself



I don't blame ya, though... a free shirt is a free shirt! 8)

 

[MartinE]

I prefer Instant Ocean, but it is low in the calcium dept.

 

[Rlumenator]

Oceanic for me. Borneman will be coming out with a study on the diff. salts in the next year.

 

[coralfarmin]

There has really been no noticable diff when I use IO or CL
I use well water though, that is high in Ca & Mg, I had a organic chemical analysis done by the NC state lab, then got rid of my ro/di.

 

[Anonymous]

I've been using OceanPure on my nano, it's very high in calcium, alk, and mg. Which means that every time I do a waterchange, I don't have to worry about my parameters dropping.