Another Salt observation! Brightwell -> Red Sea Blue Bucket

[OnPointCorals]

The past 2-3 years at the coral farm we have been using Brightwell Neomarine. I was happy with it and no complaints. Through a wholesaler I had a chance to pick up a quantity of Red Sea blue bucket and decided to make the move.

We slack a bit with cleaner out our mixing station and get to it once maybe twice a year. The 65-gallon drums have been always white and clean, I never felt like the Maintenace was urgent.

I am now on just our 3rd bucket of Red Sea Blue. I'm in shocked what the inside of our mixing container looks like. I have no before picture, but I can tell you with 10 months of no cleaning it was white inside before making the switch.

I know this crud is often said to be harmless anticaking clay and I have to say our livestock looks business as usual, so I don't suspect any issue with the salt. Just a little shocked how quickly and dirty it has made the containers.

 

[Cell]

I prefer salt that mixes clean, regardless of actual benefit.

 

[piranhaman00]

I don’t understand why you would use anything other than IO purple.

 

[OnPointCorals]

I don’t understand why you would use anything other than IO purple.

We used it for you years before Brightwell. Absolutely nothing wrong with IO and if we didn't get other salts for great price would still use it. I do assume more premium salts have better trace profile but I could be wrong.

One thing I do remember with IO the mag was all over the place.

 

[OnPointCorals]

Are you red sea users seeing the same thing? I used to have the brown crud from IO but not this dark and quick build up.

I didn't know how spoiled I was by Neomarine I guess.

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

Back when I used to mix large 200gal batches of salt quickly of Red Sea Salt we would see some of this build up in our mixing container. We observed it happened more often when adding the salt quickly to the water (like dumping the whole bag in at once or at least a majority of it). Once we switched to adding the salt via a pitcher every 3-5 seconds our container stayed significantly cleaner.

Other observation, we didn't notice this problem with Coral Pro just the "blue bucket" Red Sea salt.

 

[MECOMI]

Are you red sea users seeing the same thing? I used to have the brown crud from IO but not this dark and quick build up.

I didn't know how spoiled I was by Neomarine I guess.

When i started my 44-gallon mixing station i used the Red Sea Blue bucket. It quickly built up the film of brown/white crud. Each batch would last me about 4 water changes which took 4 weeks to complete, and the inside of the container just got worse and worse with each new mix.

I do want to note that this never caused my tank any troubles, but i did clean the bin once ever 4-6 months.

After getting frustrated with the build up i tried to locate the reason 'why' I found several videos from Red Sea/BRS/User accounts and discovered that the Blue Bucket salt mix is not meant to be stored. Mixes fast, then use right away. I am not sure if a month is a long period of time to store but i ultimately switched.

The most surprising thing for me was switching to standard Instant Ocean. Even though there are a lot of reports of it being dirty, i have been pleasantly surprised just how clean my bucket has stayed since i have switched. My mixing station is still due for a cleaning, but its been more then a year since i have had to take them apart.

later days,

B-Kind

 

[OnPointCorals]

I’ll have to look into that. I thought the feedback was that Redsea Blue can be stored without issue.

 

[OnPointCorals]

Another thing that is a bit disappointing with the changeover to Red Sea Blue. The mag runs very low.

According to the "my batch" its 1285. at 35ppt it's testing even lower with Salifert (1240). I am having to dose a lot more mag now.

 

[cdnco2004]

One thing I do remember with IO the mag was all over the place.

I heard about that but thought I heard they resolved those issues. I know with my IO RC mag has been pretty stable.

 

[cdnco2004]

The most surprising thing for me was switching to standard Instant Ocean. Even though there are a lot of reports of it being dirty, i have been pleasantly surprised just how clean my bucket has stayed since i have switched.

I was using TropicMarin Pro reef salt because of the BRS videos of their salt tests. Then I had a month where I was broke and needed salt cheap and got a box of Instant Ocean Reef Crystals , which was significantly cheaper. Figured a couple of water changes would not hurt to use IO RC. It worked pretty well, SW mixing tank was quite a bit dirtier than the TM Pro Reef. I found however that if I let the water "mix" for like at least 8-12 hours at 80 deg it would mix much cleaner with only a little bit of residue left. Been using IO RC since.

 

[rtparty]

Welcome to Red Sea salt. Every bucket I ever used or tested from them was dirty.

I can't speak highly of Brightwell either as it was one of the worst salts I tested in my ICP testing. It left something (like sand) all over the bottom of my bin and the parameters were horrible. I have since been told to mix it in colder water and try again.

 

[Spare time]

Its precipication.

 

[Devisissy]

Nyos is amazing BTW. This crap is cleaner than a one of those murder scene cleaners.