Who's using what salt?

[BrianH]

Instant Ocean. IMO, the best salt for decades and also one of the cheapest. It mixes the exact same every time so that I have a good base to raise the calcium and lower the alk to exactly what I want.

What do you use to lower the alk?

 

[MuralReef]

I’ve been using predominantly Insatant Ocean and also Instant Ocean Reef Crystals.

 

[TheRealChrisBrown]

I am an Instant Ocean guy as well, but maybe a little different reason. I find that when I was buying expensive salt I was LESS likely to do weekly water changes because I would not want to use up all that expensive salt so quickly (I seem to remember buying a 160 gal bucket of Salinity in LFS for ~$100 once). With IO I buy a 200 gallon box of mix for $50, which works out to .25 cents per gallon. If I do a 30 gallon WC that would be $7.50 per week. As an example the Brightwell NeoMarine that is on sale for Black Friday is $62 for a 150 gallon box, that's .41 cents per gallon to make, my 30 gallon WC comes out to $12.40. The more expensive that salt gets, the less likely I am to do a weekly WC. I don't know, maybe I am just really cheap!

 

[Dr.DiSilicate]

Instant ocean here. Works pretty well, cheep and consistent. I’ve tried others but keep coming back to it. Never had an issue.

 

[jda123]

What do you use to lower the alk?

Muratic Acid. It is cheap, easy and reliable. You do have to mix and aerate for a day or two extra to drive off the excess CO2, but nobody should be using a salt because of alk content - it is easy to take up and down - whereas calcium is not so easy.

For standard strength Murtaic, gallons * desired dKh drop * .123 is the number of mls of Murtic acid to use.

 

[verlanst]

Fritz RPM