Kent Marine Reef Salt vs Instant Ocean Reef Crystals.
 

i have been using regular instant ocean salt mix however there is a sale online and the Kent Marine MIX and Reef Crystals are the same price as the regular instant ocean...was wondering which of these are better out of the 3..
i have a 150 reef with lps corals only...anemones, hammers, frogspawns, bubble corals

I love reef crystals. Always mixes good and my test results are always terrific using it and dosing Kali only.

Haven't tried anything aside from the instant ocean brand but from what I understand, it's the ideal and preferred salt brand

IO is a good salt, but once you start keeping corals you may find that you need to suppliment some items fairly heavily. My personal tank maintenance got much easier, and my levels more constant when I went to Reef Crystals. With reef crystals the only thing that seems to get out of range for me is alk. I am just about to try a bucket of Red Sea Reef Pro, so will see how that goes.

In general though, if you heavily suppliment your tank, and monitor levels of Mg, Ca, alk, etc, you can really make any salt work.

I prefer Reef Crystals, but in general, there isn't a single best salt mix.

Cant you mix the different salt mixes. Find mixes that have what your looking for and blend them?

I prefer regular IO to Reef Crystals or Kent due to the presence of vitamins in the latter two which I do not want in my mix. Kent also seems high in calcium and low in magnesium.

Have to second the IO Reef Crystal, all I use and my reef loves it.

By the way, New to the Hobby. Meet our RC reef chemist Randy. When he posts don’t take it lightly. He didn’t come up on the last canoe in reefing or chemistry.

Thank you for teaching me so much Randy and the others in the Chemistry Forum.

with sps,lps can you get away with weekly 15% water changes with instant ocean and not dosing a 2 part?

The biggest issue with IO is the ca level is listed at 400, Most people like more calcium than that (the 420 to 450 range) for reef tanks. If you suppliment calcium it should be just fine, but you will find it very hard maintain calcium with just water changes.

thanks...is it ok to just use the calcium part of reef fusion 1 and 2....the calcium also has mag in it so thats a plus.....

Ok, to settle the possible debate over reef salt, even if I could find one that did everything with a weekly water change I wouldn’t use because of cost. I only do a water change every 3-4 weeks. If you are truly running a full reef tank LPS and SPS you are going to need to supplement Calcium and Alkalinity and occasionally Magnesium. It’s the way it is.

I use more Alk than Cal. I use baking soda from the kitchen for the Alk. and use about 5 teaspoons a week. 90G reef tank. Ouch!

I also use Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime/kalk in my ATO but that’s another matter it has both.

My alk drops about 2 dkh per week.

I agree that it is unlikely that water changes will maintain alkalinity and possibly calcium if you even have just good coralline growth, regardless of the salt mix. But a little of a two part or some limewater will be plenty if you mostly have soft corals and lps.

Thanks, Sport. :)

1 tespoon of baking sode/sodium bicarbonate mixed in RODI water will raise 20 gal. of water 1 dKH.

You thank me for nothing PLEASE! I learned it from you Randy.

Thanks though.:reading:

I like Reef Crystals, but haven't tried many others.. Started with "Instant Ocean" and graduated to RC when I started using the Cal / Alk

I use Reef Crystals and have been happy with it. My Alk also tends to drop requiring additional Baking Soda each week. I also put Kalk in my ATO water.