Crystal Sea Marine Mix, another salt thread

Jay · 09-24-2006, 08:44 AM

What have you heard about this salt?
I use the cheap Crystal Sea Marine Mix. Its cheap, Maintains PH and Alk well. The only thing I dont like about it is occationally there is white clay in the bottom of the mixing barrel. It gets hard just like clay does. Aparently they mine the salt and some clay is left in it. At least thats what my LFS says. Who knows...all I say is all my inverst are healthy and getting old and my corals grow pretty good. I did hear about some bleaching of sps corals by people using this salt though. Has anyone heard/experianced any of this bleaching or white clay?

Jay

inwall75 · 09-24-2006, 11:29 AM

The SPS bleaching issue was because people didn't phase it in slow enough and it was the Crystal Sea Marinemix Bioassay formula and not the regular marinemix. (Marinemix has a built in de-chlorinator but Bioassay does not).

Ron Shimek wrote an article years ago about heavy metals in salt mixes and mentioned that this particular mix didn't have the same problem. Since this product can be used for Bioassay purposes, this mix doesn't utilitze any chelator's like EDTA. Large water changes from chelated mixes to a non-chelated mix is what caused the problem.

With that said, MANY salts can do the same thing if not phased in slowly. Even a switch from one chelated mix to another chelated mix.

EDIT: If it ain't broke, I don't see a need to fix it. Additionally, all mixes with the exception of Red Sea Salt is mined. Technically, Red Sea is also mine, it's just mined in a different way.

Jay · 09-24-2006, 11:42 AM

Really....did not know that. I have read the spawning urchin studys some time ago. My LFS sells pre-mixed saltwater by the 5 gallon jug ( Seahorse Aquarium Supply in Portland Ore SeaHorse Aquarium Supply ). He makes a killing selling it. He has built his own Giant DI filter and has 12 foot tall 10 feet wide water containers two of them to store it. He buys this salt 3-4 pallets at a time. He swears by it...but of course thats the only brand he sells. I do like it all except the way it sometimes leaves white clay in the bottom of my mixing tank. Usually its only the last batch of water mixed from the box that has the clay. Some boxes have nine. I sucked the stuff right into my tank at water change with no ill effects.

Jay

inwall75 · 09-24-2006, 11:57 AM

I know that urchin studies have been done for a long time so I know why they were used. I won't comment too much on Dr. Shimek's study because I've promised Matt to take it easy on Dr. Ron. I'll leave it at this comment only, "He's fairly sloppy with his science on anything other than worms and scaphopods".

(OK...I gotta get one dig in. Sorry in advance Matt. Did you read Dr. Ron's article where he claims that coralline algae ruins live rock?)