Advice? Salt Mix?

I just got my new RO/DI up and running, so I will be mixing with pure water for the first time. I'm looking for opinions on a marine salt that will provide the correct balance of elements to support beginner corals without dosing. My present lighting is probably not sufficient for stonies, so something that is good for zoas, mushrooms, and softies should work. I'm currently using Coralife. Also if anyone has extra laying around I would be in the market.

 

Thank You,. This is very good advice. I was leaning towards IO because I'm all about cheap. My tank is not new, It's actually over 10 years old. The only thing that's new would be the corals. I've been using well water up until now, which tests at about 200 TDS, so some large and frequent water changes are probably in order. That;s another good reason to opt for cheap, at least for now.

I'm thinking about using Reef Crystals instead of regular IO for several reasons. The main one being that it has a metal detoxifier. I know my well water has a lot of rust rust in it. If we don't use the rust-reducing water softener pellets, the tubs and toilets get stained up pretty quick, and I'll bet the softener doesn't get all of it, even when fully charged. I bought a few cheap frags that aren't doing well and rust is my #1 suspect as the culprit. Snails don't do well in my tank either, which would support this theory. With the RO/DI that will be less of a problem going forward, but I've been using rusty well water fo so long, I'm afraid there's probably a residual build-up that could take quite a while to get rid of with water changes only. Another reason is that RC's have extra trace elements. I think I may be suffering from old-tank syndrome where the trace elements become depleted over the years due to infrequent water changes. With fish-only and very good biological filtration, I really didn't see a need to change the water very often until I decided to try corals. Also, RC's don't cost much more than regular IO, only about $8 more for 200 gal worth.

The only thing that worries me is that the Ca/Alk/Mg levels in RC's seem very high, almost excessive with very little coral to use them up. I wonder if this could be detrimental to just a few frags. Maybe it would be better to go with regular IO and use something else to detoxify the rust. What are your thoughts on this?

 

Yeah, I had kind of talked myself into that one, but thanks for the confirmation. The pad you're thinking of is called a Poly-Filter made by Poly-Bio-Marine. Pretty cool that it changes colors according to the pollutant. That could potentially be a big help in determining the cause of water quality issues. I/m now anxious to put these to use and see what they tell me.

 

I'm sure there are no longer undesireables going in. I think it's a matter of getting the undesireables that are already in there out. I've been using rusty (and who knows what else) well water for a long time, so I'm afraid there could be a buid-up of undesireables leeched into the rocks and sand. I've ordered some Poly-Filters which change color depending on the pollutant. We'll see what that tells me.

 

Thanks Sponge. Nice to get some more good advice. I thought this thread had been forgotten. I have a good water softener and skimmer. I've been running polyfilters for about a month and the color change indicates that if I do have a problem with my water the most likely cause is excess organics. However, I have never had a thorough scientific water test, so the Triton method intrigues me. More info on that would be greatly appreciated. I'm on a limited budget, so I've tried to muck my way through with the cheaper test kits, like API, which might get you in the ballpark but are clearly lacking in precise accuracy. If Triton results can be trusted and would enlighten me to any serious and correctable issues, I would be willing to pay a little extra for that. I just can't afford to spend hundreds of dollars on kits that are complicated, prone to mistakes, and expire before they're even used up.

That said, I'm almost certain that my main problem is insufficient lighting, so I'm now in the market for an upgrade. But again, I don't have the money to replace expensive bulbs regularly, so I'm leaning towards LED's. I've heard that black boxes are good enough for zoas, mushrooms, and softies, and at this point I would be happy just to see them open up. So far, I would call my first attempt at raising some frags an epic fail. But the only way to lose is to quit. Right?

 

I've always had a water softener. You can't live without one with rusty, limey well water. I just got a significant upgrade on my lighting, and I'm picking up a much larger tank this weekend, so the stuffs about to get real.