Cali Kid Corals

What salt should I get?

I’m on my last 200G mix of liveaquaria bag and need to order more salt. So far my two tanks (75 and 25G) appear to be ok using said salt (just Fritz reef pro?) but salt mixes at alk of 8.5 dkh alk and so been running both tanks at that alk.

What salt would you get and why?
 
I run Instant Ocean Reef Crystals, it mixes 9.2ish alk, 450ish CA, and is a little low on mag (1350ish), but I can dose everything up to my liking. I have never seen IO go out of stock and it is used by public aquariums everywhere.
 
I use regular Instant Ocean (not crystals), and tweak it by adding a bit of Magnesium. But I have a large tank and I really
like the cost plus the 4 x 50 gallon bags in the big 200G box. Plus I have a lot of softies so like the extra Alk.

That said, I usually recomment RS blue bucket. Reasonable price, good reliable salt. Very close to normal sea water.
No need for tweaking Mg like I do.

The "premium" salts have advantages, but have issues with mixing and variability. Plus some have organics.
So I usually recommend avoiding those.
 
I use reef crystals.

I used to use red sea coral pro for a long time. But then found it hard to justify the cost when seeing how many very very successful tanks just run regular IO or reef crystals.

That said, the cost isn't really THAT much higher in the grand scheme of things. I just struggled to have an answer for what I actually gained by spending more.
 
Tropic Marin Pro. It is superior in every way except cost. I’ve tried the others mentioned and they are all ok.
 
Side note:
Where do you like to buy salt? Online,? LFS? Petco?
This actually matters quite a bit.
A lot of salts are not available in all places.
Some buckets do not ship well.
 
I just switched from Red Sea Blue to Reef Crystals. Neptune Aquatics doesn't sell Red Sea Blue so I would have to drive to AC which is 30minutes away. Some days I am just to lazy to drive for salt, so I went with something that every Petco has. Once my tank is more established with corals, I might try a new salt that Neptune carries. It's about convenience for me.
 
FWIW many commercial coral farmers use RC (Tidal gardens) or even just regular IO (Jason Fox) - that's settled my opinion on being able to get away with using a cheaper salt.
 
Side note:
Where do you like to buy salt? Online,? LFS? Petco?
This actually matters quite a bit.
A lot of salts are not available in all places.
Some buckets do not ship well.
I go to Clearwater as it is the closest LFS to me, and they carry IO and use it in their tanks, so less harsh transitions for fish and coral for my system is my theory.
 
You should use IO over RC if you dose Ca/Alk. The values in RC are way elevated (and inconsistent) and made for people with very low consumption who don’t want to dose and just supply Ca/Alk by doing water changes. But this results in Alk swings. It is not that IO is for fish tanks and RC is for reefs like a lot of people think.

Larger for-profit operations have different constraints and different advantages than the average hobbyist. They probably also don’t feed the best food, use the higher end pumps, care as much about smart controllers, care about how their tanks and stands look, etc. In short they treat it like a business, not a hobby.

For them, a little cheaper salt makes them a little more money in the large scales they go through. It doesn’t really matter if it takes longer to dissolve, leaves a residue, doesn’t have stable parameters after being made up, or has to be manually tested and supplemented before use when you are doing large batches used quickly in large systems with a professional staff.
 
You should use IO over RC if you dose Ca/Alk. The values in RC are way elevated (and inconsistent) and made for people with very low consumption who don’t want to dose and just supply Ca/Alk by doing water changes. But this results in Alk swings. It is not that IO is for fish tanks and RC is for reefs like a lot of people think.

Larger for-profit operations have different constraints and different advantages than the average hobbyist. They probably also don’t feed the best food, use the higher end pumps, care as much about smart controllers, care about how their tanks and stands look, etc. In short they treat it like a business, not a hobby.

For them, a little cheaper salt makes them a little more money in the large scales they go through. It doesn’t really matter if it takes longer to dissolve, leaves a residue, doesn’t have stable parameters after being made up, or has to be manually tested and supplemented before use when you are doing large batches used quickly in large systems with a professional staff.

I want to support my LFS, and my water changes are small enough to not mess with my alk too much, but you are totally right.
 
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You should use IO over RC if you dose Ca/Alk. The values in RC are way elevated (and inconsistent) and made for people with very low consumption who don’t want to dose and just supply Ca/Alk by doing water changes. But this results in Alk swings. It is not that IO is for fish tanks and RC is for reefs like a lot of people think.

Larger for-profit operations have different constraints and different advantages than the average hobbyist. They probably also don’t feed the best food, use the higher end pumps, care as much about smart controllers, care about how their tanks and stands look, etc. In short they treat it like a business, not a hobby.

For them, a little cheaper salt makes them a little more money in the large scales they go through. It doesn’t really matter if it takes longer to dissolve, leaves a residue, doesn’t have stable parameters after being made up, or has to be manually tested and supplemented before use when you are doing large batches used quickly in large systems with a professional staff.
I use RC as well, but only do ~2 gallons a day water change in about a 170 gallon system. I like it because I make up 40 gallons at a time and dump a bag in which gives me the perfect salinity each time. I guess it would be the same with IO but then I would have to dose mag more often.
 
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