Help!! Bio sea marine salt

I have switched. I'm now using fritzs. I know they were having a lot of problems keeping things consistent. If u need fritz let me know

 

I have had problems also. Lost 95% of my sps tank. I can't pin point it to the salt for sure but wouldn't count it out.
Fritz is basically same as bio sea I have experienced same with it. Not saying that is for sure the problem but just my experience also.
I had other problems going on at the same time so I would only be guessing at this time to be able to say what exactly cause.

 

@mattman319

 

I lost some big, old sps colonies using aqua craft salt. I switched to Fritz and am having good luck, so far. But these are just my experiences.

 

Been using reef crystals for 11+ yrs. no problems here.
I hate change
And I'm cheap
Hope ur sps come back
I Always liked your picks of ur sticks.


Sent from my iPhone via App

 

Sorry to hear that Bill - and Jeremy. I hope I don't follow in your footsteps...... After 10+ years of using reef crystals, I finally decided to give something else a try and I ordered HW-Marine Mix from BRS during the Black Friday sale. Just started using it a couple weeks ago. I hope I don't end up regretting it. I have a box of Reef crystals left - thought I'd sell it, but maybe I just better keep it around for awhile.

 

We switched to Fritz about 3 months ago and like it. Seem to have better PE and color but color may be due to adding T5's to supplement LED. At any rate, happy with it so far.

 

Since this seems to be the salt conversation. Anyone have experience with red sea coral pro?

 

Does salt have a shelf life? Found a couple of old bags of salt - one RC and the other is Coral Life. Both had clumped up in their packaging and wouldn't fully dissolve despite letting it mix for several hours.

 

Taste it. If it's salty you're good.

 

Also, I tried switching to Biosea Marinemix. I went very slowly. By the math I had fully rotated in the Biosea after about 6 months, a gradual switch from RC. My SPS hated it, my LPS seemed unaffected. I think it's a good salt if youre going to do something like Triton Method or zeovit perhaps and I like how it mixes. It's kind of like grass fed beef to me. Looks good but it's missing something.

 

After trying a bunch of fancy salts over the years I settled on the standard red sea salt. The pro version contains elevated ca/alk/mg. If you're dosing to keep parameters in line with nsw then you're better off with the standard red sea. If you do water changes to keep parameters in line then you'll want the red sea pro.

 

I've heard nothing but good things about Biosea salt. I have considered switching to it myself when I'm out of RSCP.

Since you said you did a "tank restart", was this salt left over from whenever it was you had used it before? Like Stew suggested, salt doesn't necessarily keep well. How did you keep it and was it clumpy? If not, there's husbandry, how was yours? I don't mean to imply anything, so don't take it that way but you didn't say so I don't know.

From personal experience, someone gave me a bucket of IO once that was leftover from when they got out. Like a few years old. It was a solid mass in the bucket and had to be broken up. You could tell humidity had gotten into it. That salt may as well have been cow crap for all it was worth.

 

I also use it and do not dose anything. Despite the elevated parameters of the salt, my tank maintains a more modest alk of 7-8. It mixes clear faster than IO does and doesn't leave as much residue in my Brute. It will if I leave it longer than a day. It's meant to mix and use.

 

Thought about that but was concerned about what was not dissolving. Not an expert on salt mix ingredients and my first thought was calcium. That I can test but if it's something else...

 

The water being cold is a huge issue with brands that have calcium and alk significantly above NSW range. Less of a big deal with something like tmp with low alk, but always good practice. Also a general chemistry rule is to never pour water on the salt, always add salt to the water. (Well chem is solvent and solute but same thing here).

It's hard to beat the overall quality control of reef crystals and instant ocean.