- Today on BRStv Reef FAQs we answer how to switch marine
salt mix brands safely for a saltwater tank.
(upbeat music)
- Hi I'm Ryan your host of BRStv Reef FAQs.
Quick straight to the point answers,
those questions reefers ask all the time.
Today we answer a pretty common question,
how to switch salt mixes?
This is a good question.
I think at face value it shouldn't matter
how you go about this because all of the popular
artificial seawater mixes have proven themselves
to be capable of a salt reef tank.
But the reality of this is kind of different.
Changing salt mixes does frequently have setbacks.
The biggest questions is,
"Why is that?"
I don't have a definitive answer that,
other than clearly they're not all the same,
otherwise this would not be the case.
The two most obvious answers is some have pretty
significantly different major minor trace elements,
some desirable and some may be less so.
So the first part of this is I
always recommend selecting the salt that's
close to the calcium, alkalinity, magnesium levels
you want to maintain the tank.
But if part of switching salts is you wanna
significantly raise or lower the levels,
you wanna do this slow.
And this is part of the strategy that I'll share today.
The other part this is all the major
raw materials of the salt come from
different sources which inherently
have different impurities,
most important being the magnesium,
calcium and sodium sources which are either
largely derived from minerals mined out of
the ground or dehydrated sea salt,
or various degrees of purification
ranging from adequate for the application to
more intensive standards like
pharmaceutical grade materials.
The thing is that corals are amazingly adaptive creatures,
if we just give them the time to do so,
and then maintain that environment stably.
So it's very possible that corals will adapt to
something like high lithium levels if you
give them the chance.
But they will not appreciate rapid changes back and forth.
The presumption here is switching from a lower
quality salt to something higher grade can
only be a benefit,
but if the corals have adapted to possibly higher
lithium or another element outside a truly toxic levels,
stability is actually what corals appreciate most.
So I think that we should just assume slow
change is better regardless of what salt
we came from or going to.
One thing I'd like to keep in mind here
is tons of reefers have switch from one salt
all the way up to 100% water changes
and not seen a setback.
However, others have had more negative experiences.
The difference here is probably
the corals that they keep,
maintenance practices and the two salts
that they were using
and switching to which is all different.
What we're gonna do here today is describe
what I'd call amongst the highest percentage pass
to success with the least amount of effort.
Step one is decide if you
really need to switch.
If your tank is doing well and meeting
all of your goals,
just stop in your tracks
and don't bother switching.
Don't switch just because someone has a better
label or marketing hype either.
Look for something definable.
I'd say there's six common reasons that
reefers switch salt mixes.
The first is obviously, it's cheaper.
The cheapest thing that works is an obvious attraction.
After that, it gets more about performance
and ease of use.
Second, the salt matches the desired
calcium, alkalinity and magnesium levels
for your tank better than the one
that you're currently using.
Third, the salt mixes faster.
Meaning it's ready for use in hours
rather than a day or two.
Fourth, it mixes easier.
Meaning there's limited equipment involved.
Like a heater isn't required.
And after it's fully dissolved,
doesn't require a pump for prolonged storage.
Fifth, the salt mix doesn't contain visual contaminants
that can collect in the salt bin.
It's that common brown crud that crusts the bin
or form that brown organic foam at the top.
Not all of them do that.
Sixth, the salt mix has some clear sustainable
quality or purity standards
that goes beyond marketing hype,
has actual meaning and some degree of transparency.
Some good examples of that are
Red Sea's MyBatch ICP
and Aquaforest's Quality Certificate test results
match the bucket you came from.
Something found in both of their sites,
Tropic Marin's approach is in
pharmaceutical grade raw materials.
Meaning the independent standard on the front end
being another example.
There might be some other reasons to
switch salts as well.
These are just some common ones.
The only one I caution against is
grows corals better or worse than another.
Well one absolutely has to do that better
than another that's completely anecdotal
and unique to each persons' experience
in a combined approach to reefing.
And there's significant confirmation bias involved.
I think a better angle on that might be
rather than (mumbles) of the absolute best salt,
just being satisfied with using one of
the best options for that growth
and coloration goal,
but also achieves more definable goals
that also lead to healthier,
easier (mumbles) tank.
Okay so all that's said,
what's the best way to switch salt?
There are two distinct paths here
based on limiting the impact of
changing both the desirable
and the undesirable changes to major
or minor trace elements levels
and they're somewhat dependent on your
strategy to water changes.
If you have what's becoming an increasingly
popular water change schedule of 10% weekly
or using automated water change solution
with just small amounts everyday,
the solution is easy.
Just mix up the new batch of salt and switch.
The 10% weekly or 1 to 3% daily is inherently slow enough
that it will take months to completely change over
and there won't be any drastic changes to
water chemistry during that time.
The second path is based on a water change schedule
of something close to 20% every two weeks
or 30% to 40% once a month.
In this case there's potential for appreciable
change to water chemistry.
To limit that,
I think the best path is to mix the two salts
gradually together and then switch over.
That gradual mix changeover that I would
personally recommend is 75% current salt,
25% new salt with the first change.
50%, 50% for two changes after.
And then 25% current salt and 75% new salt
for the fourth change.
And then 100% new salt from there on.
Of course pay attention to how the tank responds
and slow the process down if
you think the tank would benefit.
Hopefully that clarifies some of
the reasons why a reefer might change salt
as well as an easy path to do it.
If you're interested in exactly how long
it takes for a salt to properly mix,
check out Randy's Investigates.
He also had a quick one on the difference
between Tropic Marin Pro and Classic.
Of course every last video on salt can be found
in the salt category at the bulk resupply site
with that little box being a quick shortcut.
See you next week with another episode of BRStv