red sea coral pro

[GatorAlum05]

you guys ever experienced sps fading to white using this salt? I think it's the main culprit of why my sps have been slowly taking such a hit. thoughts?

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I've not heard of any such effect and it seems somewhat unlikely to me.

Can you explain your experience a bit more?

Were you previously using something else and had better color with everything else basically the same?

[thegrun]

I've been using it for at least the last 4 years, no issues with my tank (that I am aware of).

[GatorAlum05]

I have two tanks that I built at the same time. One was a big tank, the other a small tank. I wanted to use red sea coral pro with the large tank considering it was going to be my showcase tank. Went with Reef Crystal in the smaller tank. No big deal.

Filtration, flow and lighting were exact(bigger one times two). The only difference was I started the large tank with Red Sea Coral Pro and the smaller tank with Reef Crystal. It's been a little bit over a year now. Both tank has flourished. Stability as stable gets. The big difference is SPS in my small tank grew and flourished like it was supposed to from my previous tanks that I've had. The large tank has great corraline algae, zoas by hundreds of polyps but SPS cannot sustain. I cannot think for the life of me. Both tank uses the same lighting, except the larger tank uses two fixture instead of 1. Same vortech flows. Almost everything the same. I just keep scratching my head and can't understand. I asked my guy over the lfs(FAIOS) and he told me it's my salt and the high level of alk in it. No knock on red sea coral but it is my first time using it. And i've been somewhat stubborn to a fault to try to make it work. But I think I'm going to make 5 fifty gallon water changes in the next 10 days with reef crystal and hope for the best. Just wanted opinions on those who have used it. It's frustrating. My parameters are where they should be, with alk being around 10ish. I just don't understand. The tank is ULNS.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Maybe the big tank is too ULNS. That seems to lead to pale SPS in some cases.

Also, some folks think that colors are a lot better in ULNS SPS systems at more like 7 dKH. :)

[GatorAlum05]

Maybe the big tank is too ULNS. That seems to lead to pale SPS in some cases.

Also, some folks think that colors are a lot better in ULNS SPS systems at more like 7 dKH. :)

Oh I made sure I fed the tank coral food every day. Have a lot of big fishes for good poop.

The alk is just killing me. Tried to go with a more expensive salt and in the end just wasting money. Going to find a salt with lower ALK. Thanks for the reassurance. FML.

[outssider]

1... iorc tests around 11dkh after setting for a day. how much higher is the red sea ?

2...even with 20% water change using rc and keeping tank at 8dkh I don't even alter my dosing of alkalinity/calcium/mag on the water change day.

I don't see the alkalinity of the salt as the issue here