I’ve reached the end of the rope……I’m switching teams. Since the inception I’ve been a Reef Crystal user. I came to believe that your choice of salt was like your choice of spaghetti sauce….whatever you were brought up on is what you liked. Well I guess that is not true, because I’ve had it with RC.
Back when I switched to LEDs, I had just started a new box of RC. At the time I didn’t pay much attention, but it took longer to dissolve and the bag was a light yellow color. Anyway what ended up happening is that a couple corals (that I had for a long time) started to die, and a few weren’t looking to good. Since I had just switched to LEDs, I blamed it on the lights. Time past and I opened my next box of salt….this stuff dissolved immediately, was really small grain, and the bags were as clear as glass. That’s when it hit me that I had a bad batch of salt. The “bad” stuff was clumpy (larger grain) and very slow to dissolve. At this point even the “weed” corals, like orange and purple cap weren’t looking good. I did a large water change and after about a month all the bad looking corals started looking good again. This reinforced the idea that I had a bad batch of salt.
So more time passes and I can’t seem to get my calcium number down. I start slowly turning down my dosing pump for calc, until eventually I had it totally turned off…..only dosing alk. My calc numbers were still over 500. At this point I tested a fresh batch of saltwater and find that it is well over 500 for calc as well.
No more story……bottom line is that I’m going to switch to plain old Instant Ocean and dose the stuff I want to put in the water. I was never crazy about the clay fillers and “vitamins” that were in RC anyway, and this way I’ll know what is going in my tank. I also figure I’ll be able to control my alk, calc and mag better. (And finally, part of my reasoning is that the God of Reef Chemistry, Dr. Randy Holmes-Farley, is also an IO user…..and if it’s good enough for Randy, it’s good enough for me.)
Back when I switched to LEDs, I had just started a new box of RC. At the time I didn’t pay much attention, but it took longer to dissolve and the bag was a light yellow color. Anyway what ended up happening is that a couple corals (that I had for a long time) started to die, and a few weren’t looking to good. Since I had just switched to LEDs, I blamed it on the lights. Time past and I opened my next box of salt….this stuff dissolved immediately, was really small grain, and the bags were as clear as glass. That’s when it hit me that I had a bad batch of salt. The “bad” stuff was clumpy (larger grain) and very slow to dissolve. At this point even the “weed” corals, like orange and purple cap weren’t looking good. I did a large water change and after about a month all the bad looking corals started looking good again. This reinforced the idea that I had a bad batch of salt.
So more time passes and I can’t seem to get my calcium number down. I start slowly turning down my dosing pump for calc, until eventually I had it totally turned off…..only dosing alk. My calc numbers were still over 500. At this point I tested a fresh batch of saltwater and find that it is well over 500 for calc as well.
No more story……bottom line is that I’m going to switch to plain old Instant Ocean and dose the stuff I want to put in the water. I was never crazy about the clay fillers and “vitamins” that were in RC anyway, and this way I’ll know what is going in my tank. I also figure I’ll be able to control my alk, calc and mag better. (And finally, part of my reasoning is that the God of Reef Chemistry, Dr. Randy Holmes-Farley, is also an IO user…..and if it’s good enough for Randy, it’s good enough for me.)
