mixing salts

[swissgaurd]

ive been thinking of the salt mixes we have lately.
I was and still am a fan of RS salt but,the expense and availability here is not the best,the one store franchise that carries it here only orders a few buckets at a time,they only get in the coral pro and not the regular red sea.Tropic marin pro is more available but also very expensive. Ive had to resort to reefcrystals as it is very popular here and the price is a lot more reasonable.Now im a big fan of a stable reef,thats why ive been using redsea salts for 8 or 9 yrs.
so my question is what do you guys think of every water change use a different saltmix.
I was thinking of doing redsea coral pro one week and then reefcrystals the other week.
im presently doing 10% waterchanges every week which is 16 gallons at a time in my 225 gallon tank.(152 total water volume)
I haven't heard of anyone doing this what would be the pros and cons.
thanks
vic

[nystang]

When I was switching from Red Sea Coral Pro to Instant Ocean, I was mixing both before adding to the RODI but sometimes I was adding just IO, without any ill effects. I don't think that the small difference in trace elements will be noticed by the live organism in our tanks. I use IO now and my corals are happy and everything looks great. Red Sea was just too expensive.

[Mr tap water]

Hi there
I would think it might upset the stability of your stats I.e. cal ,Mag,kh Etc different brands of salt have different levels of Mag etc so in my opinion I think its best to stick to one brand at a time and if you want to change to another do it gradually

[disc1]

Depends on how different the levels are and how big of a water change you're doing. If you've got a difference of 3 dkH and you're only doing a 10% water change then you're only changing your tank parameter by 0.3dkH. That's totally acceptable and shouldn't cause any problem.

On the other hand if you'v got a difference of 7 dkH and you're doing a 50% water change, now you're talking about changing your tank by 3.5 dkH and that is probably a bit much.

[dkeller_nc]

I don't foresee an issue with doing this, presuming that you're changing 10% or less per week. Any difference in major, minor or trace elements between the salt mixes would therefore not actually change the tank's water all that much.

But - why would you want to? Lots of us use instant ocean because of its low price, and then just add a little bit of calcium chloride to adjust it to our preference. In my case, I make about 25 gallons at a time, and one level tablespoon of calcium chloride dihydrate boosts the calcium concentration from 400 ppm to 450 ppm. I use Bulk Reef Supply's calcium chloride, and at the 1/2 gallon price ($13 USD), the addition of a tablespoon to the 25 gallons costs 10 cents, so it's a heck of a lot cheaper than buying a "boosted" salt mix like Reef Crystals.