Salt mix and zoas... Could specific brands be detrimental to zoas?

[MrFus]

We know that not all the salt mixes are the same, different trace elements, additives and in general the quality of the parts that compromise the mix are a constant variant between not only brands but even batches from the same manufacturers!

And that of course lead me to wonder two questions:

1: Are some brands better than others when it comes to keeping zoa colonies?

2: Are some brands/salt mixes that are detrimental for zoas (slow growth, polyps not fully opening, shrinking without apparent reason)?

 

[Reefing_addiction]

That’s a good question
I’d also like to know the answer to

 

[blasterman]

Detrimental no.

Beneficial...possibly.

I recently bought some high end zoas from a coral farm that had the best water control I've seen and had spectacular corals to prove it. Their Zoa tanks looked like something from Avatar. After some long discussions about nutrients they insisted that after trial and error Strontium was something they keep a close eye on, especially when it comes to softies. I dismissed Strontium long ago as affecting SPS, but never tried it for dosing for softies. Indeed after dosing it I saw fatter polyps on some colonies I thought were getting too much light.

Strontium is a wild card with salt mixes. Some have it...some are deficient in it. Shows once again that salt makers need to expressly agree on what trace elements they include and specifically what ratio they have them.

 

[MrFus]

Thanks for the info, I have been using RedSea blue bucket on my nano, and I'm thinking to give a try with tropic marin Pro reef and that is why I was wondering if there is a salt mix that is better design for zoas when it comes to chemical composition vs all around saltwater tank formulas.

 

[OceanMinded]

My issue with TMP salt is that you typically have to dose it to get the parameters up

 

[MrFus]

My issue with TMP salt is that you typically have to dose it to get the parameters up

I was reading about that just after I placed my order... Probably I'm going to wait before trying to use it as I don't any experience at all with dosing to adjust values!

 

[Hooz]

I'm looking at switching to TM Classic. It mixes right inline with where I keep my tank's ALK (9) dosing All for Reef. Using Reef Crystals now, but it mixes at a lot higher ALK than I run, and it's dirty as heck. Thought about switching to regular IO, but it mixes dirty as well.

TM is more expensive, but I have 30g, 22g and 10g tanks, so it's not like I'm burning through salt mix.

 

[homer1475]

Regular old IO is no where near "dirty" like RC is. I've used IO for many years and my mixing barrels are spotless, and I have never cleaned them.

 

[MrFus]

My zoas are looking bad, shrinking and not fully opening, Salinity it's on +-34.5, nitrates on 12.6, phosphates on 0.14, and alkalinity on the 8-8.1 range...

They were doing really good on the start, maybe a whole month they were opening nice and even got some extra heads on a couple of them, but then they started looking sad, I blame it on the fact that I dose some AB+ (1ml on the 20 gallon nano) and the tank is still to young, so that craped the nitrate and phosphate levels too fast triggering too the ugly brown new tank stage, right now I have a couple of snails going on the tank and eating the algae from the rocks...

So far I have not been able to get the nitrates and phosphates to fall on a stable line, the snails are doing their part and the whole system its slowly moving on the right direction, that is why I was thinking on trying a different brand of salt.

Maybe I'm not letting the blue bucket salt mix long enough, or maybe there are some discrepancies with the levels of nutrients on the mix between batches been prepared for water changes and that is what keep my numbers moving and irritate my zoas... so as far as I have read TM is a good quality salt mix and tend to have great reviews for been easy to mix and consistent on the values, and that is why I was thinking to transition to the mix.