Issues with Coralife Salt?

[neoreef]

Has anyone had a problem with Coralife Salt? Can you tell us what it was? I am considering changing to Oceanic salt, cause folks say it is so good, but it is 2 times as expensive, and doesn't come in handy 5 gallon buckets at the pet store. I change 10% a week in my 55, so I buy salt.
I know Oceanic has a good level of Ca, but for me that's not an issue as I don't have that many corals yet, and I drip kalk. ( Right now I am slowly trying to decrease my Ca as it got to 500 when I wasn't looking. I stopped the Kalk temporarily until I get everything balanced again.)
So, who doesn't like Coralife salt and why? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[neoreef]

Thanks! Anyone have any issues with Coralife Salt?

 

[wrassie86]

I had a big problem with coralife salt a few years back,then i was using instant ocean and switched to the coralife,because of the high calcium levels.And that is what got super high, more than what your complaining about,wiped out half my tank about 2mos after starting to use it.
I called Leroy over at GARF. and he said that this was not the first time he had heared of this hapaning and suggested 5g a day intill half the tank was changed out (using instant ocean)
this did return the tank to normal
when i called coralife and complained they asked for a sample of the salt to be sent to them.i got a call about a week later.and the guy said they tested the salt and the calcium level was alittle high but it was my fault for not testing it more not to mention the bag was from the 100g bucket (they were 2-50g bags then) So i lost $25 worth of salt and about 4 corals that melted Needless to say i dont use there products any more.i could rant about there bulbs to but it's all in the past now

 

[neoreef]

Thanks! I didn't know that coralife salt was considered high Ca. I'll check for that in future.
Thanks.
Any other problems with Coralife Salt?

 

[neoreef]

Holy cow!
Just tested my coralife salt water change water for next week, and it's over 500 for Ca!!!!!
I thought my Ca was high from the Kalkwasser, but it is from the Coralife!
anyone else have this experience?

 

[h2oengr]

How about Kent brand? It's probably not nearly the quality of oceanic, but it seemed to work great for me. It even brought the pH up to 8.3 without the addition of a buffer solution I usually use. Just another option.

 

[nm reef]

Interesting that you should ask about the Coralife Salt...I've never used it and I seldom see many negative comments about it...but at the LFS today I saw buckets of it on sell for $3.99 a bucket...a little larger bucket of Oceanic was $49.95 and the new buckets of Instant Ocean were $39.95...when I saw the lower price on the Coralife I almost was tempted to buy a few buckets for my maintenance systems...but fought off the urge. I believe I'll wait 'till my Instant Ocean is used up then I'll switch to Oceanic.

 

[neoreef]

I guess I'm switching to Oceanic. We acutally don't get IO in the stores around here. Oceanic is also kinda hard to find. I can get some at petsdumb, but like I said, it's twice the price. Internet is a possibility, but then there's shipping.....

No one ever said this hobby is for the frugal.

 

[fairylady]

I too have had trouble with Coralife sea salt.My readings were about 750 calium for weeks.That was just after starting a new 55 gallon,which I haden't added any calcium.Luckly I didn't lose what little I had in the tank at the time!