Mixing Salt brands?

[fishaman]

I've been using Crystal Reef Salt in my tank for the past year and now my LFS no longer stocks it. I was told I could use Red Sea going forward. Has anyone done this?

[dots]

Some people blend salts to reduce the defiencies between the different brands.

It appears in your case your are switching completly. I have heard in some instances tanks have had problems when people have switched salts.

To avoid this, I would consider finding another source for the Reef Crystals, perhaps ordering it online from Dr Fosters as it has been competitive in the past.

If your are going to switch brands, I would take a conservative approach and blend them while reducing one while increasing the other over the course of a few months......just to be safe, or do small WC's for a while versus one larger one at first.

But I have also heard of many switching with absolutly no problems.

[trippkid]

I try not to do this kind of thing, but I recently had some issues with the salt I was using, Red Sea Coral Pro, it was mixing up at very high alk values, too high for my SPS tank, so first I started doing smaller volume water changes with the high alk stuff, then when I decided I had enough of that I purchased some Seachem Marine salt and combined the Red Sea with the Seachem, and mix up the bucket a few times before I use the salt to hopefully mix it all up. It is almost empty now, so I am trying one more bucket of RSCP and if it comes out high again, I will be looking for a permanent alternative. The way I will handle it will be sort of the same, kind of weening the tank off of the old and beginning with the new, by mixing a batch of the two salts, smaller water changes for a couple weeks. That is how I am doing it, you may not have to be as critical as this, just how I do things like this with my system. If you are going straight with another brand, I would just do smaller changes for a couple of weeks and see how things respond, then get back to your regular schedule and volumes. Good luck, I hope you don't have any problems.
Matt

[fishaman]

Thanks all. Appreciate the feedback.

[jenglish]

I have known people to mix their 2 salts togethor as they switched from one brand to another. If you switch all at once I would recommend small water changes for awhile so the change in parameters is slowed.

[Jeff]

Dont worry about a thing. As long as you use decent salt, it wont matter. I do it all the time. I use Tropic Marin reef and regular, Seachem, and Deltec.