Oceanic Sea Salt

[discuspro]

So has anyone truly found a cyanobacteria bloom or problem when they switched from one salt to Oceanic, or what ever situation? I stupidly bought a bucket of the stuff last year and I still use it. I've got some cyano but not to an extreme. I have absolutely no fish and I put no food in the tank for anything. I just hate when it attaches to a vulerable part of a coral and works at weakening or killing coral tissue!

Is Oceanic junk or not? I'm thinking about forgetting the rest that's in the bucket, probably 50 or more gallons worth, and using it to salt down my walk way if ever it ice's over in Austin this chilling winter!

[hammondegge]

i use oceanic and prefer it. calcium levels remain higher and no trouble with cyano.

[discuspro]

Sweet so that helps me narrow down suspects like my RO system. On a side note, has anyone had a good deal of cyano and bought an organism that ate it right up and preffered it? I keep looking and I've got mexican red leg hermit that Garf.org talks about but they are too good to even look at it.

[JimD]

Personaly? I wouldnt add an animal to bandaid the problem as itll most likely return if the cause is not determened. Can you give us a little info on the tank? Age, equipment, parameters etc. etc.

[hammondegge]

i have battled it from time to time in the seahorse tank. it will go away if i increase flow and shorten photo period.

[GaryP]

Cyano prefers areas of low redox potential. This is usually the result of decaying detritus and a lack of circulation. Since you said that you don't have any fish, I'm sure the detritus is not a big issue. If nothing else, the hermits should help with any that you have there. Increase circulation would certainly be helful. The trick to that is that it usually grows in areas that are hard to get extra circulation such as the base of rock where additional current may cause a sand storm or back in recesses in the rock.

Another issue is nutrients. You are not going to see any algae grow without excess nutrients. You need to figure out where those are coming from in your system. Since you have corals in there I assume you are monitoring your alkalinity. Increased alkalinity is helpful in managing cyano.

I assume you are skimming. Carbon can be helpful. Another strategy is to increase your redox potential. Ozone or potassium permanganate are two options there. A potassium permanganate solution is obviously a more readily applied option. I bet you know where you can lay your hands on some. If not, Kent makes one.

[GaryP]

I had a pretty good discussion with Mike Paletta during his visit about Oceanic Salt. He has visited their manufacturing facility.

Apparently, the main problem with Oceanic is due to variability in its composition. Mike said this was due to the very small batch sizes they use in its manufacture. The facility that makes IO and Kent has large mixers that make thousands of pounds at a time. Oceanic is made in small batches that are just a couple of hundred pounds. This means that measurement errors of the individual salt components are multiplied in a smaller batch. The equivalent error in a larger batch has a much smaller impact on the ratio of salts.

Oceanic also has a lower amount of alkalinity than other salts such as IO. If there is any contribution to the cyano problem from Oceanic then that may be it. Of course that assumes that you aren't supplementing buffer seperate from water changes.

[Richard]

When I set up my 215 using oceanic my tank was completely covered in 2 days. I used di water and liverock that I had cured for 4 months. So I think it was the salt. This was right around the time that some others (on rc and a few customers as well) reported the same problem. I don't think it was cyano though. It looked more like dinoflagellates to me. I had set up my 46 gallon before this with oceanic and did not have any problems others than needing to bump up the alk. So I think there was a bad batch or two that some of us were unlucky enough to get.

That was a year or more ago and I have not heard of anyone having those types of problems with it since then. I tried a bunch of salts since then and finally settled on reef crystals.

[jap1]

I've only used Oceanic so far. I finally measured my Calcium and Alkalinity in my main tank the other day and it is definately Calcium strong. My calcium tested at 580 ppm and my dkh was at 10. I don't dose anything. My coralline growth has been pretty nice though. I'm definately going to use reef crystals next time.

[Richard]

My calcium tested at 580 ppm and my dkh was at 10.


That's pretty good. Alot of people have trouble getting their alk up when the calcium is so high.

[fishcrazy]

Get a tds meter and test your rodi water before adding it to your tank. I bought a kent ro/di unit and filled my hole tank with it before realizing the tfc membrane was junk. Just because it's an ro unit doesn't mean it's working.

[discuspro]

I've got a TDS meter and I get readings at about 25. I have a new housing for a DI that I don't have in the system right now. I used to have a DI but I didn't know if it really helped until now.

[gjuarez]

There has been a lot of reefers who have reported bad batches of oceanic salt. I discontinued using it because of the same reason. Also, my calcium levels were very high and my alk was very low. It really messed up my chemistry. just my opinion.

[discuspro]

Yep, alk always low Ca high! We should go to Oceanic and say they shouldn't sell something that doesn't hold up what they say about it. I was running along doing weekly water changes without testing alkinity too often (before research). Did a larger water change and all heck broke loose on alk readings and now I've had to supplement like crazy!!!!

I just realized you can actually see the bucket of Oceanic in my avatar. Like I've said I still have a good bit of it, DARN IT!

[Richard]

Well the oceanic battle has been fought on here many times.

I spoke with them long ago concerning the very high ca levels and here's the deal. They designed this salt to give a ca reading of around 450 at a sg of 1.020 - 1.021. The guy I talked to was surprised to learn we tended to run our reef tanks at 1.024-1.025 so that's what puts the calcium thru the roof.

I suppose you could mix it up to 1.020 with oceanic and then use IO for the rest and you would probably have water with pretty good numbers as far as Ca & Alk go.

[discuspro]

Thats funny. So a rep from Oceanic didn't realize what a normal salinity was kept at? That doesn't say a good thing about the company because it sounds like they weren't very informed about keeping live marine systems.

I guess maybe it was more designed for non-reef systems?

[GaryP]

Why would you want high calcium in a non-reef system?

[discuspro]

Yeah, I thought about that after my last post. I don't know, one or the other is wrong low salinity normal Ca, or high salinity and high Ca. I don't know what system the salt would be most likely useable for under those designs?

[GaryP]

Oceanic's quality control problems aside, I think its a good salt for a system that has a high calcium demand such as an SPS reef tank. Doing a wter change is basically the same as dosing with a calcium supplement.

The problem, as I see it, and has been demonstrated here in several posts by folks having chemistry problems, is in tanks with low calcium demand. They get their calcium up high and are unable to get alkalinity up to balance it. Low magnesium levels probably contribute to this problem as well.

While Oceanic has lower alkalinity then IO, this is easily corrected by dosing buffer. Alkalinity is very important for several reasons and is more readily depleted then calcium. It has demands on it other then calcification by corals. It is depleted as a buffer by neutralization by biologically produced acids. Alkalinity has a tendency to fall a lot faster then calcium. In a low calcium demand system reducing the calcium level to a manageable level is often only possible by doing several water changes with a lower calcium salt such as IO. The other problem with Oceanic is that they supposedly don't add all, or as much, of the trace metals as are needed. I'm sure there is a cost strategy here as these metals tend to be more expensive. I believe it was Richard that told me that Oceanic said that they did this because they thought everyone was already using trace supplements already. I was surprised at this because I had changed my dosing strategy on trace metals in the belief that they could be satisfactorily maintained through water changes. Richard, if I misquoted you I apologize.

IO, on the other hand, has low calcium levels (~375 @ 1.025) and is an old formulation from the days when FO systems were the norm. This type of formulation makes perfect sense for a FO system.

So, what is the best salt to use? My opinion is that it depends on you and your system. How you supplement, your goals for your system, and what sort of critters you want in your system. Clearly the answer is that the best salt is one that mostly resembles natural sea water. There are apparently some out there that do that, such as bioassay, but they are very expensive and are out of the cost range of most reefers with large systems that are doing frequent, large water changes. One complication to this whole question is the lack of data on the composition of most of the common sea salt brands. Some independent analytical work has been done but more is needed. There is a project currently going on to do a more thorough analysis of the salts available on the market. I have spoken to Isis from MARSH about this. MARSH is one of the sponsors of this project and I plan on bringing that up to the MAAST BOD as well. Not only is the composition an issue, but so is the variability of the composition. As was previously mentioned, that has been one of the claims made against Oceanic, that their manufacturing process does not make a consistent product, from batch to batch.

I think the key is product knowledge of the salts and supplements you are using and adapting your chemical management strategy according to the strengths and weaknesses of those products. Unfortunately this requires good product information. As mentioned earlier this is inadequate at present. It also requires good knowledge of water chemistry by hobbyists and LFS staff. Unfortunately the knowledge by LFS staff can be fairly questionable in my opinion, in some cases. This is not their fault really, but rather it is based on the fact that their knowledge of the products they sell is mostly based on unsubstantiated market claims they get from manufacturers. This is further aggravated by the fact that most LFS staff are not advanced level reefers themselves. There are exceptions to this of course. I would certainly never put Richard or Mark in that category. However, how many 20 something LFS staffers, making little more then minimum wage, do you know that are operating large reef systems on their own. How many are reefers at all, or rather into cichlids, or SW predators, or even reptiles? The unfortunate part of this issue is that the folks that rely on thses folks for recommendations and product knowledge the most, are the ones that are least knowledgeable. I am referring to folks new to the hobby, or new to reef sytems, here.

Every salt and supplement on the market is the best thing to come along in the hobby since protein skimmers. If you don't believe me, just ask their sales reps. Some LFS have the knowledge and experience to sift through the marketing fluff, and other's aren't. Richard's comments earlier about Oceanic is a perfect example of this. He is knowledgeable enough to know that some follow up information was needed about this product. This is the point at which the knowledgeable hobbyist has learned the operative strategy should be "buyer beware."

OK, I am officially stepping off my soap box.... for now.

[GaryP]

For those of you interested. Here is a link to one study done on the composition of sea salts by Craig Bingman at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010303215133/www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1999/mar/features/1/default.asp

One thing to notice in this study is the salinity of the vaious salt mixtures. Since we don't make up SW based on weight as they did, but rather by the resulting salinity this could an important factor. I assume the differences were due to moisture content in the salts themselves.

Note: This study was done before Oceanic was on the market.

[gjuarez]

When I switched back to instant ocean everything started looking better. I always had problems with Oceanic not giving me a consistent read on alk/cal levels, which required a lot of adjusting. I had a decent demand of calcium with a couple of sps and 1 clam. Magnesium was at 1350. With IO, I always premixed the saltwater and added just a bit of the B Ionic Calcium part and that helped bring my levels back to balance. Oceanic was less consistent. Also, I was one of the unlucky reefers that had a bad batch that had excess of phosphates. Its IO from here and now on for me. Gary great info. Richard, good follow up, if only there more LFSO like you.

[scuba_steveo]

I do not know the Chemistry like Gary but here is what I do know. On my tank, SPS tank with high calcium demand, I switched from IO to Oceanic and over a period of a month or two I started losing a bunch of corals. I did not (and still do not) know why. I started doing a bunch of water changes, with more Oceanic salt, and they corals kept dying. I talked to Todd who said that he thought it was the salt. So I switch back to IO and the tank bounced back. Now my system is doing great now on IO. I add ESV Mag and other supplements but my SPS are very happy now again. I do not know if it was the salt but I am not going to switch again. Find something you like and stick with it.

[discuspro]

I think I want to try IO and see what happens. Would you recommend reef crystals or just plain IO? Also, if it ends up that it works well what is the best place to get well priced IO in Austin or a good online place?

[gjuarez]

reefcrystals and instant ocean is made by the same company. they both are good in my opinion

[discuspro]

I know they are both by IO, but isn't reef crystals suppose to have more calcium and other stuff to help even more with a reef setup?

[gjuarez]

yes, it does have a bit more calcium

[Richard]

rc has better alk, think it is around 10 dkh. Calcium still a bit low at around 380 or so. I haven't check mg or anything else. It also has vitamins/amino acids. For me I think it's worth the extra expense but if I didn't use it I would probably use IO. You'll have to decide if it's worth the extra expense. I'm happy with it and my tank seems to like it also.

[discuspro]

Cool Richard, good stuff!

[Wryknow]

I alternate water changes with Oceanic and IO. The calcium is pretty good and the alk is hair low. A little reef buffer helps to take care of the alk issues for me though. I think that I am going to switch to reef crystals though if I can convince any of my LFS to carry it. I've read some very good reports about it.

[discuspro]

I just ordered a bucket of Reef Crystals and I'm looking forward to it helping my system out!

[Thunderkat]

If you don't have any corals in that tank just put in some tiger cowries, they eat cyano like it is going out of style. The only problem is when they get big they can plug up your plumbing when they crawl over it and make your tank overflow (speaking from experience). Supposedly some may aquire a taste for soft corals but mine never did.