Experiences with Reef Crystals and Oceanic?

schigara

schigara

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Jan 2, 2005
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Just curious what others have experienced as far as Calcium and Alkalinty.

This time when I set up my tank, I decided to use Oceanic and the Ca and dkh would measure at 450-470ca and 8.8-9.6dkh. I kept reading about how everyone loves ReefCrystals so much that I thought I would give it a try and I always had to buffer a lot to get those kind of numbers.

24 hours after mixing ReefCrystals in the rubbermaid, the ca and dkh would average about 380ca and 7.8-8.2dkh.

After using up one 160g bucket of RC's and hassling with 2 part buffers, I am switching back to Oceanic. I mixed up a batch last night and tested this morning. 450ca and 9.2 dkh.

What are some of your experiences with ca and alk with these two salts?

P.S. I have read that Oceanic gives some inconsistent ca and alk levels but I never saw any big swings from batch to batch with 3 buckets.
 
I use Reef Crystals and I never add anything to my tank. My calcium is currently 500+ and my Alk is 8dKH. My Ph is always around 8 - 8.4 depending on time of day.

I've never used Oceanic so couldn't comment on that.
 
I am curious about this, as well. I've been using Instant Ocean and have been considering switching to Reef Crystals or Oceanic after consistently low calcium levels with Instant Ocean.
 
I am going to try something new that I learned from a guy running a system for 12 years with no skimmer and ro/di water..

He filled a 35 gallon garbage can half full with CC and aragonite sand He adds his ro/di water to this and the aragonite/cc disolve and bring the water up to 8.2 ph and he uses instant ocean.. I have used instant ocean in the past but switched to reef crystals.. I forgot my camera but another guy is going to get me pics of his tank to post.. He also has all of his corals on agrocrete.. Wonderful system.

I do however have to dose quite regularily in my system (3 to 4 times a week).. But oceanic isn't available around here either..
 
I recently purchased a 60lb bucked of Oceanic from dr foster and smith.
Prices were pretty good. almost half of what my LFS charges. Also, shipping was very reasonable. I am in NY if that makes any difference.
 
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