Anybody in Cali know about ocean water?

It finally hit me that I should use sea water since my LFS has Catalina Island sea water. They said s.g. could sometimes fluctuate 1.025-1.028, ph should be ~8.2, Ca ~450, and a good amount of magnesium. Is this correct, and what other trace elements are in the sea water?

 

I work at a fish store and there is a company with the name of Catilina......many people (even store workers, ias i once did) assume it comes from there. Most of the water in LFS of mid lower-northern Cali. comes from Bodaga (spelling?) Bay of which ther are three companies that get water from that area. One of them being catalina....they have scince changed thier name due to confusion. But back to the question, There are alot of other "trace" elements in sea water.....I perfer it as it is what i have always used and have never had any problems with it.

 

So, catalina is the name of the company and its not from catalina island (the island), but from Bodaga Bay. I figured Catalina Island is too far away from the bay area to get sea water for LFS. Im going to use sea water from now on since corals live in the sea! Thanks, and take it easy...

 

You know this is funny timing.. after a couple year stint with Catalina I am switching back to salt mixes.. part of this is economics... Catalina water is $1/gallon where I live where as 200 gallons of salt mix is $42.

The other is that I found myself dosing supplements a lot with Catalina water. Now honestly this was probably in part due to not doing a lot of water changes and having some hungry corals, snails (100s) etc.. but corals didn't seem to grow fast.

But it really made me wonder if going back to the 'spiked' salt mixes might be easier as well as cheaper. Nothing scientific, just a curiosity.

So that's where I am heading right now. Let me know what your experience is.

matt

 

Catalina Norcal is the name of the company that delivers to the bay area. It comes from Half Moon bay.

 

Matt, you mentioned dosing supplements "more" when you used catalina H2O. I have a 10 gal. and I feel the kalk. was too much Ca+ for the litle nano (520ppm Ca+), so thats when I decided to use sea H2O, because I was informed I wouldn't have to dose when using sea H2O! I am still a little new at this reefkeeping thing, but what supplements do you use in your 20? Hey Gresham, thanx for the info. Information is so key w/ this hobbie!!!

 

I used superbuffer dkh, liquid calcium, tech-m (magnesium) and kalk. Not sure what made this tank such a hog. Hoping the more frequent water changes with salt mix and dosing kalk will do it for me like it used too. I didn't test the catalina water so I don't have much to stand on for my hunch. Test it, I'd be curious.

 

For what its worth, 25yrs ago I lived in New York
10 min from the ocean and used ocean water in my overstocked 55g and 20g tanks. I never had any diseases and lost only 1 fish in 5 years. And back then I only did a 25% water change every 4 months. Tanks ran with undergravel filters and AquaKing power filters without skimmers.

 

I'll get on that test of sea water Matt! It would be nice to know what the parameters of the sea water is. Thanks for the info.

 

Bodaga Bay thats the town the movie the birds was filmed