salt supply emergency

[cfish]

hi folks. Hubby and I have been reef keeping for about 5 years and perfecting our technique through a yin-yang process..... any hoo, last time we did a water change ( just over a week ago) there was a "Failiure to observe" accompanied with a "failure to communicate". Which tonite has lead to a very acrimonius situation if you get my drift....course its all my fault....
The situation is this, I am the water maker, an when I went to add the salt for a water change... oh oh...not enough salt left. We get a box of three bags, and keep the open bag in a sealed bucket from which I work from....last time I didn't realize the bag I was working from was the last bag... and there is not enough left for the scheduled change. I am very much in the dog house over this.
we have two choices. Either wait til the order of salt we placed tonite comes in - we did make a rush order - or use the brand of salt we were using before we switched to this brand we could only get by order.
We have a 100 gallon tank and do an approximately 10 to 15% change every week. This has worked well for us.
I say, it is not going to be a big deal if we have to wait to the 2 week mark to make our regular change - our conditions have been clean and green and stable for quite some time.
My husband is antsy and not happy with waiting, but was vehmently opposed to making one change with leftover supplies of our previous salt. Not a bad brand, BTW. Our current brand is definitley better but if necessity mandates...
So I want the forum's opinion on which is the lesser of 2 evils. Waiting till the salt comes in, and prolonging the change til 2 weeks, or substituting our previous brand for this one change..... please help me out of the dog house if you can....

 

[Grins]

I don't personally think doing either is going to be disastous. Arm wrestle on it.

Oh and psst, I use a mix of 2 different kinds of salt every week. Sometimes my 7 day WC turns into 10 days.

 

[clown-lover]

I don't think it is going to hurt to use a little salt from your previous brand. I just switched to Reef Crystals from Instant Ocean, while they are the same manufacturer I used part IO and part Reef Crystals for my last change and only did part of my normal kalkwasser dose to bring the calcium up to where I have it in my tank.

My fish didn't die, things are going well. As long as your previous salt is a quality salt I really don't see the issue. You may have to dose something if it isn't a "reef" grade salt but that shouldn't be a problem as long as you monitor your parameters.

 

[joshuacpr99]

I'm new to reefing. i have had a fish only for about 4 years now so the salt was never an issue, but is there really that big of a difference in the brand of salt you use. if so , what are some of the better brands? i have been using coralfe scientific grade sea salt. is the one of the lower grades?

 

[Grins]

My fish didn't die, things are going well. As long as your previous salt is a quality salt I really don't see the issue. You may have to dose something if it isn't a "reef" grade salt but that shouldn't be a problem as long as you monitor your parameters.

I doubt they'd even need to dose if it is quality salt. I mix Oceanic with Instant Ocean 50/50 and seem to be fine. (knock on wood)

 

[Grins]

I'm new to reefing. i have had a fish only for about 4 years now so the salt was never an issue, but is there really that big of a difference in the brand of salt you use. if so , what are some of the better brands? i have been using coralfe scientific grade sea salt. is the one of the lower grades?

Most of the major brands are just fine for FO/FOWLR tanks. Many prefer to upgrade to a reef grade salt when they start stocking corals as it is easier to keep things like Ca/Mg in check and sometimes even without dosing. The most popular reef grade salt around this forum is Reef Crystals. I happen to use another called Oceanic but they are both great as are a few others.

 

[clown-lover]

Actually there is quite a bit of difference between the individual salts out there and knowing what they each contain or lack will help you better maintain a reef system. Why? Because if your salt is lacking in Calcium you are going to know that you have to dose calcium or magnesium.. idodine etc etc etc.

If you go to google and search for "marine salt study" you'll find several different studies. Unfortunately none of them match completely so like many things in this hobby you need to process the information and make your own decsion.

I personally am not saying there is anything bad with any of the salts tested but based on my own reading has made my own choice of salt to use.

 

[Subliminal]

How much of the salt do you have left? Could you do a 5% change to appease the spouse?

With a small (under 10% change) this once, mixing your salts wouldn't hurt a thing. Like Grins said, I've mixed oceanic with my reef crystals, in a pinch, because i had it around...

Just don't fight about it, ok? Not worth it.

 

[cfish]

thanks all. nope,no big fights....
The salt we are using now is definitely a reef grade; my husband found the brand on line after doing quite a bit of research. It's not available in stores around here....
we decided to just hold out. Our tanks is fairly lightly populated both in terms of fish and corals and everybody seems happy so far. In fact our clownfish took it upon themselves to spawn this week......this was not a planned or anticipated event on our part at all! Salt should arive tomorrow; we'll do the change the day after (allowing the water to mix and aerate over night). We'll be at day 13 at that point but by the looks of things we should be ok....