Which Salt?

You will get all sorts of opinions. I've read quite a bit on this same subject and some people swear by the Reef Crystals, and others say that the trace elements that they add aren't enough to really make much difference to justify the price.

The general consensus that seemed to trump every other comment was "what's on sale is the best."

 

I know I had quite a bit of algae growth with kents, even had algae in my mixing tubs in the basement

 

I do agree that this is extremely preference related but I can tell you what I use.

For all my broodstock tanks I use regular IO, and it does the job wonderfully. this is in bare bottom tanks ZERO corals, but a crap ton of macro algaes that simply thrive!

For my reef tank i've always used Oceanic salt, but to this day I have not seen any difference between oceanic and my instant ocean in this tank... EXCEPT the price. So, needless to say I'm going IO with the reef as well. To date none of my corals have suffered at the hands of the salt switch.

I did try some extremely knock off cheap salt made by top fin (which is now discontinued I believe) and had extreme losses with that. Every single hard coral I owned in that tank took a dive that was too great to recover from. Except a few... which after much TLC, have recovered, but sustained major damage and or loss to the coral. /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/sad.gif

 

I have used several salts over the years including RC and IO. I use IO because it's cheap, has been a proven salt for years and readily available. I used RC up to the time when I had to start dosing ALK and CA after Kalk couldn't keep up. I figure paying the extra money for higher ALk and CA isn't worth it to me now since I have to dose anyway. As far as color and growth for SPS, I believe there are other elements and factors involved besides salt. Lighting, photoperiod, stability, potassium, strontium, etc...are all involved with growth and colors :0)

 

Ive really liked kent reef.

 

I use Kent also and i really like it. I have bit of hair algae but it could be from over feeding, can't just blame the salt. Lol

 

RC! It works great and the price is good. Tried the more expensive and didn't notice a difference. I paid almost 90 for salt in a white bucket can't remember the name and couldnt tell the difference.