Old news... but the popularity of donations has died down and I believe this analysis deserves proper attention.



Dr. Shimek's recent test has shown that there may be substances in salt mixes that are inimical to some marine life. We now need an independent measurement of these salts to see if we can conclusively determine the difference that would explain Dr. Shimek's results.

We are concerned that no analysis was done on the two salts that Dr. Skimek reported the best results for -- he just used the manufacturer's advertising literature! We have seen before what value that has (remember Combi-San). Additionally, those two salts were not included in Atkinson and Bingman's analysis.

I was asked to start a seperate thread for this project. Reefs.org Site Admin Shane Graber (liquid) has offered to throw the support of Reefs.org behind this effort.

The preliminary plan is as follows:
  1. Obtain samples of each of the following salt mixes:

    Aquacraft Bio-Sea Marinemix
    Aquacraft Coral Marine Sea Salt
    Aquacraft Marine Environment
    AquaMedic Sea Salt
    Aquarium Systems Instant Ocean
    Aquarium Systems Reef Crystals
    Coralife Salt
    Fritz Super Salt
    Kent Marine Sea Salt
    Marine Enterprises Crystal Sea Marinemix
    Omega Sea Salt
    Red Sea Fish Pharm Sea Salt
    SeaChem Sea Salt
    Sera Premium Sea Salt
    Tropic Marin Sea Salt
    Waterlife Ultramarine
    Wiegandt HW Marine Mix

    If there are any salts missing, please post, as well as where you order it from if it's an obscure brand.

    We will get three samples of each, and try to get different batches by ordering a couple months apart and/or from different suppliers. We will get most of the salts from our wholesale distributors, but will have to order some from other retailers. We will not use any samples direct from the manufacturer.
  2. Get three different natural seawater (NSW) samples. One sample from here in New England, one from the west coast, and, if possible, one from the Indo-Pacific region.
  3. Mix a quantity of each salt with the same batch of RO/DI water.
  4. Determine the weight required for each to mix to a 1.025 specific gravity.
  5. Measure initial pH and pH of the NSW samples.
  6. Send out samples of the dry salt to a lab (probably either Northern Analytical Labs - the same people we used for Miracle Mud and Combi-San testing or General Engineering Laboratories, LLC) for an Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICPMS) test. This test will give elemental quantities for Lithium through Uranium down to the part-per-trillion range with a 1% accuracy. We will either have to evaporate the NSW samples, or check to see if the lab can get comparable results with a liquid sample.
  7. While waiting for the lab, let the liquid samples stand for a number of days and test pH periodically during the wait period. We can not aerate the samples, as it would be difficult to provide aeration in a manner that is identical for each sample.
  8. Publish results here and on our web site. Include full elemental analysis, weight determination (do you get 50 gallons from a 50 gallon bag?), and pH results. Cover both the bag-to-bag consistency and the comparison to each other and NSW.
  9. If Dr. Shimek is willing and able to repeat and expand his bio-assay test, we will provide to him samples of all the salts we tested.


The cost of this project will be considerable. For the number of samples we are running the cost is estimated at $200 per test. 17 salts plus NSW X 3 = 54 tests -- that adds up to $10,800 (!).

Initial funding concepts include:
  • Donations from individual hobbyists.
  • Get each salt manufacturer to kick in $1000 -- may be a tough sell if the company is not especially proud of its salt composition. There could also be concerns about influence from the manufacturers, so we will wait to see how the hobbyist donations go before approaching any of them.
  • Raffles for high-value items that everyone wants. Sell tickets for $10 each. After covering the wholesale cost of the prize, the rest would go towards the salt test. Maybe several other stores could do this too with different items.


Donations may be made by credit card at http://www.inlandreef.net/saanprdo.html.

Paypal donations may be sent to email address info@inlandreef.com.

And if you would like to send a check, the address is:

Inland Reef Aquaria
Salt Project
97 Main Street
Nashua, NH 03060

If the total funding falls short, we will test as many salts as possible starting with the four in Dr. Shimek's study and proceeding roughly in order of popularity.