Who has used Coralife salt long-term?

It's about time for me to order new salt. My system is not big, a 20-long and 25-high, with a 5.5 refugium and 5g sump w/skimmer.


My tank is mixed, with a few growing SPS frags but mostly LPS (esp. euphyllia)


I have a local source for Coralife salt at a good price, so I can get it without shipping charges.


However, it used to have the reputation for having fluctuating levels of ca, alk, mag, and others.


Anyone here used it long term? It's been easily 3 years since I have used it at all, and even then it was only a single bucket.


Thanks!

 

I have used ESUs salt in the past but never long term... It always had a strange odor to me... Didn't smell like other salts... My qualms with it aside from the fluctuations... which has been mostly taken care of, it always runs really high in Ca, too high IMO...

Central Aquatics who owns, Kent, ESU and Oceanic have been reformulating the salts over the last year or so, so most likely the salt reads differently then when I tested it last which was about 2 or so years ago.
Why not get a small amount and give it a whirl, buying local and avoiding shipping, sounds like a plus to me...

 

I've been using it for the last year or so in my mixed reef tank. I have both SPS, LPS and softies. Coralife salt has been working great for me. I've been testing each new bucket and Ca, Mg, pH is always the same. When I get home I'll post test results. Ca and Mg are high. I don't need to supplement Mg very often. Ca is also on the high side. High 400s. Comes with three individual bags in the bucket so it stays fresher. Also comes with a T-shirt. My wardrobe is now dominated by Coralife T-shirts.

 

Good point on the T's awesome side note!! I have a few my self

 

I use coralife.. no problems.. Calcium and Magnesium are high... no issues here.. been using for a year

 

i have to admit, i buy whatever is on special offer at the time.......

 

First off, Welcome to 3reef, redfishsc!! You're going to like it here.

I certainly agree with that.

This pretty much matches my scenario.

Yup. Same here.

 

+1

 

Thanks for all the replies, folks!

I am considering getting a large container for mixing saltwater, so mixing 100g at a time is much easier than mixing 5g. Will make it so much easier for testing purposes, as I'd want to test the parameters before using it.

 

Here are some measurements I made on different batches of mixed Coralife after aerating for 24 hours. Specific gravity 1.025.

6/19/09 Ca = 560 ppm Mg = 1485 ppm
2/22/09 Ca = 540 ppm Mg = 1335 ppm
8/4/08 Ca = 480 ppm Alk = 4 meq/L (11.2 dKH)

Just for reference I tested Reef Crystals on 7/14/2008. It only had a calcium level of 360ppm.

Here is a good read. It is a list of test results for different salt mixes. Coralife did very well.
http://reefsaltanalysis.googlepages.com/AWT_Salt_Analysis_0208.pdf