Aquaforest probiotic method

[Proteus]

Myself and others in the Edmonton area have all quit using rbs for the last year. At $140 a box and extremely inconsistent alk levels it was a waste of money

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Proteus

Myself and others in the Edmonton area have all quit using rbs for the last year. At $140 a box and extremely inconsistent alk levels it was a waste of money

While I liked it when I used it, alk was always dead on. I also wouldn't pay $140/box -lol

Honestly though, other than higher alk, I find no real difference now that I'm using IO again. Other than lower Ca, but that's easy enough to fix.

[Proteus]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

While I liked it when I used it, alk was always dead on. I also wouldn't pay $140/box -lol

Honestly though, other than higher alk, I find no real difference now that I'm using IO again. Other than lower Ca, but that's easy enough to fix.

I also switched to IO. Mixes fine and didn't see any issue when doing a water change.
I have had and seen boxes of rbs with alk from 5dkh to 11 dkh.
I can't just justify the price if I have to change params

[Myka]

Originally Posted by mrhasan

I threw away half a bucket of reefer's best salt while changing home since I didn't feel like carrying it down and then up the stairs. You can do the same if you want

I'm too cheap for that. If I'm going to "get rid" of some salt, I may as well get rid of it into the tank.

Originally Posted by Aquattro

While I liked it when I used it, alk was always dead on. I also wouldn't pay $140/box -lol

Honestly though, other than higher alk, I find no real difference now that I'm using IO again. Other than lower Ca, but that's easy enough to fix.

So what you're saying is that there's no similarities.

Originally Posted by Proteus

I can't just justify the price if I have to change params

No kidding!!! I use muriatic acid to lower the alkalinity in H2Ocean before using it, but I have to mix a few hours for pH to rise back up.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by Myka

So what you're saying is that there's no similarities.

No, I'm saying salt is salt. I add 50 cents of Ca to make a $40 bucket the same as a $140 box and my alk is 9 instead of 8. If I were to really care about alk, another few cents of HCL would take care of that too. But I'm not worried about alk, so save 100 bucks every 6 weeks. Although now that you mention it, saving $866/yr really makes them very different.

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by Aquattro

No, I'm saying salt is salt. I add 50 cents of Ca to make a $40 bucket the same as a $140 box and my alk is 9 instead of 8. If I were to really care about alk, another few cents of HCL would take care of that too. But I'm not worried about alk, so save 100 bucks every 6 weeks. Although now that you mention it, saving $866/yr really makes them very different.

That's my approach too. Everytime I tried a more expensive salt of any kind I found that I still needed to test params and occasionally adjust. If I end up doing that anyhow then I might as well go with the least cost option. The amount of Ca and Alk or even Mg I'd dose to get to targets is WAY less than the upcost of a different salt.

I dunno maybe that's just weird but I never noticed a difference in the tank using a more expensive salt. (Except when I got complacent and stopped testing incoming salt and got burned by a bad batch. And there just isn't a single salt brand that is immune to that!!)

[Myka]

I used to be in the same boat as you guys. There are lots of old posts with me saying IO + a couple supplements = WIN. Then I tried H2Ocean and never looked back (my SPS improved). Now, H2Ocean has much higher alkalinity than it used to, so I'm adding muriatic acid to it and everything else tests out fine. If you're not running SPS-dominant, I don't think there is much difference between one salt and another.