This is great. Thanks! You know what would be an awesome way to build on this? If you did the same tests to multiple batches of the same salt and compared them.
Did anyone else catch the Red Sea coral pro salt on the bucket says it mix’s 12.3 to 12.7 dkh. In the Brs video the ICP tests came back as 9.6 top 10 bottom. That makes me wonder how inconsistent the salt is from bucket to bucket. I used to use RSCP but switch to AFRS. Great video randy.
My biggest take away is Reef Crystals performed "poorly" just as I would suspect and ESV is still the king for consistency. It takes far less work to shake the liquid bottles before use compared to rolling around a full bucket of dry salt. If you want easy to use, Tropic Marin Pro is continuing to show it is the best dry mix available.
Very helpful for us. Many people will eventually use the whole bucket on their tank, but we have multiple tanks at our headquarters and sometimes deliver salt water to our maintenance customers. Great to have some actual data(even if it is a small sample). We've had all the brands of salt we use tested via ICP, but never top/bottom of buckets.
It’d be interesting to see if mixing at home would give an appreciable difference from the above numbers. I think that would be the real test on if it is helpful or not
@@BRStv I agree!! Feel my corals are happier when I feed in the am but could totally just be talking haha... thank you guys for everything you do for the hobby!! Best wishes!!
You mentioned that some of these manufacturers may not be as diligent as we'd like at mixing at the factory. I suggested this before but in light of this video, I'd like to double down on that request for testing. It'd be useful to see testing data to determine if different brands are more uniform from batch to batch from the factory. As a longer-term test, each time someone at the office opens a bucket, you could (optionally mix up the contents first, then) take a sample and send it in for ICP testing just like you did for this video. This time logging the results and seeing if some manufacturers are more consistent or others have more wild variation from batch to batch. How does it compare to the next shipment you get from that manufacturer? I'm not sure if all of the manufacturers print batch numbers on their packaging, but that'd be helpful for this purpose. Consistency within a single bucket is one thing, but I think there's great value in consumer confidence that the mix I get from this bucket will be close to what I got from the last one and the ones I'll buy in the future.
So what you're saying is to buy a big enough mixing tank to hold a whole box/bucket of salt like at BRS HQ and never worry about stratification again? ;-)
Have you compared levels between bags? I'm thinking possible bigger variance from bag to bag, compared to from one level of big bucket to the next (gradient).
My question is would it make any difference mixing the dry salt mix? I wondering if the separation is from less fine additives used in the manufacturing process. Making so the mix will never fully homogenized.
I would be interesting to see how far the results of mixed salt mix differ from the top and bottom of the bucket. I'm not sure that you'll see us run this test in the near future, but we'll keep that one in mind!
Two Little Fishes pre-portions their salt in much smaller sizes than IO (as small as 4.5 gallon portions). I suppose you are correct though, Instant Ocean does have 4 smaller bags within their 200 gallon box.
Good stuff Randy. That said, does it make a difference if I do a mix right before I use? I have a 50 gallon screw top with a PANworld pulling from some uniseals on the bottom and throwing it back in the top then up to my tank (floor above) when ready for a change. I give it about 30 minutes of mixing each time before I do a water change... So, I mix for the 24 hour recommended when it is full (initial mixing) and then do the 30 minutes each and every time before I do a water change to the tank... Do I need to do more or use sooner to avoid the strat? Using HW Reefer if that makes a difference... :)
I don't believe you have enough data to show this is related to stratification. You are just as easily showing irregularities in the salt quality. You would need to test multiple spots at each depth and at many depths of the storage vessel all the way to the bottom and show a stability horizontally and stratification vertically.
One thing I will say, the the last two buckets of Red Sea blue bucket I got from you guys had one bucket with a spiral crack that went from the bottom to the near the top, and the other the bottom half was completely fractured from the top. Luckily Red Sea has the salt stored in a plastic bag and I could use an old bucket to put the bag into, but damn if this salt wasn't bagged I'd have a cardboard box full of salt and packing foam.
It is super easy. First couple times definitely has a learning curve but after that, it is crazy simple and fast. Not to mention you have fully dissolved and ready to go water in less than 30 minutes. No other salt can even come close to that.
Once you get the hang of it (just follow the instructions on how much you need, measure to make sure you are at the correct salinity, then good to go), and it is super easy. No other salt mixes in under an hour...
@Sea Dweller I did try Tropic Marine Pro a while back. I was happy with it when the boxes were new (the little ones in cardboard boxes), but then due to the lack of appropriate sealing (they have some kind of glorified cardboard pouch in that size) it was becoming quickly a solid block after a couple of weeks. So while the buckets might be better, these made me go back to ESV. I guess I should have put the whole box inside a sealed plastic pouch, since it does not come with one by default.
That shows a variation in TLF salt. Can’t measure a bag from the top and one from the bottom. They are individual bags. That’s not stratification, that’s poor mixture at the source of production.
They addressed that in one for their first salt mix videos. They didn't include Fritz because they don't sell them. And there are other salts they didn't include as well. It's no mean to cover all salts in the market. So always take the result with ... a grain of salt.
I am concerned about the accuracy on the devices that took measurement, Hanna specifies it in their manual that is 5%, therefore, in your comparison everything below 5% is inside the measurement error and has no real difference. Triton does not specify its accuracy which is odd
Something to consider is: how accurate is Triton testing when it comes to making a decision based off them? This is from 2015. reefs.com/magazine/triton-lab-icp-oes-water-testing-154/
I am new to to the hobby but what strikes me about this video is there is lack of a control group. To really determine if stratification occurs and has big enough impact to matter to your typical reef keeper you would need to account for transportation variables. As an example, someone that lives in or near a coastal city and has distributors nearby could run these tests and have insignificant fluctuations in their salt, while someone in the Midwest could experience dramatically different results if their bucket has to travel by truck for three days over rough roads. Even smaller things could have an impact, such as if the bucket you received was located in the middle of a well wrapped pallet (stable) or if it was a corner bucket that shifted more during transport. The only way to determine if the difference is due to travel or lack of mixing during manufacturing would be to test these brands at their manufacturing site then simulate a controlled amount of travel/vibration on a new bucket. You would then compare the newly manufactured bucket results to the results after the simulated travel. Since these are not accounted for in the testing it hasn't proven that the changes are insignificant or that one brand is better or worse with consistency.
This was less to point out the difference between brands, but more to see if stratification was something that occurred. Very true that depending on location the amount could vary, and you very well could receive a salt that is well mixed. Overall I would just take into consideration that this can occur, and that mixing up your salt can be a good idea to avoid variance in levels.
This is study suffers from a pretty serious lack of scientific rigor. a) the "need to mix" percentages are completely arbitrary b) the icp oes method is not generally used by the scientific community for the broad set of analytes used in marine waters for this test. Some of the differences in top/bottom are less than 5% different. Is the method capable of making that kind of distinction, especially at the low or high end of the limits of detection/quantitation? c) one sample from the top and bottom is not sufficient for statistical significance if in fact the variability of the sample media is as much as reported. I'm not saying that the findings are not plausible or realistic. I'm saying the analyses completed are (in my opinion) not sufficient to confirm your hypothesis. This study will affect people's purchasing decisions and as such should be completed with a little more care.
Though I agree with you that the tests are not quite scientifically accurate, I think it's good enough considering all the source of error in the process from making water to testing. Also if a package got rolled over during transit or in their warehouse, it might cause more difference than errors of any testing method.
Very fair feedback here and I absolutely appreciate it. Although we don't conduct each test to the caliber you would expect in a scientific laboratory type of environment, we try our best to maintain some degree of scientific process utilizing the tools available to us (and nearly all other reefers) to bring some sort of clarity and value all of which on a pretty small budget. I completely agree with you that there is room for further accuracy in this test, but without spending a fortune we tried our best to help understand a common question that has been circling the hobby conversation for quite some time now. Hopefully to some reefers there is a bit a value in these efforts. For the data representation, rather than provide the details for 37-elements across 22 different tests (all of which were results represented in PPM or PPB by the ICP-OES test) we instead presented it in a more easily understood approach using the percent differences between the top and the bottom ppm/ppb reading.
@@BRStv I definitely appreciate what these video series are geared towards. However, my main takeaway really was that even if stratification is real, that ICP-OES isn't the best tool to show it. There are many tried and true analytical methods for elements that are actually meaningful for reefers. Alkalinity, salinity, calcium, and magnesium are easy enough to measure with prosumer grade equipment. I have real doubts that stratification would show as a vast difference in boron or nickel because they exist in such small quantities. If you sampled the same strata 10 times, you would probably see similar variability in the sparser elements. Another way to show this would be to repeat the same test multiple times in a single "strata" and see how much variance there is. I will be available for all future scientific consulting on your BRS videos :P
Should include fritz. My lfs and myself are having troubles getting it to balance out. We mix it to 1.026sg but the alkalinity, magnesium and calcium are always low. Alk mixes at 6 to 6.4, calcium 260-280 and mag At 1050-1100. Having to buffer the water prior to water changes to be at minimum appropriate levels is getting old.
I agree with you on fritz. I had the same problem and I switch to LivaAquaria salt and there salt is really good. PH 8.0-9.0 CAL 400-450 MAG 1.350-1450 when I got it I checked it with hanna and they were spot on. And really great price for 55 lb 205 gal. Mix
@@jdamommio I fully understand that they test products they carry. I was stating the fact that fritz has been wildly inconsistant. Main point in my post was to check your mix before doing water changes, even tho not direcrly stated in orginal post.
Not a good test. Salt mixes aren't homogeneous mixtures and arent made to just make small batches of water from a large salt mix. If you get 175gal salt mix, the entire contents should be mixed at once if you want the levels they advertise. Otherwise you'll never get the same readings twice and mixing it will do nothing but continue that process.
A vast majority of reefers can't or don't need to mix up that much salt at one time. If you're using an entire bucket at once, then you're right. You don't need to pay attention to this test as it doesn't apply to you.
This video topic was actually a suggestion that we had gotten multiple times over on our Reef2Reef sponsor forum as well as in the #AskBRStv Facebook group :)
![CAMPปลิ้น | รวม Highlight 2024! PART [1/2]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/6hnvNnvYloU/mqdefault.jpg)
Interested in the full ICP-OES testing results from this BRStv Investigates? Check it out here!
brs.li/BRStv_ICP_Results
This is great. Thanks!
You know what would be an awesome way to build on this? If you did the same tests to multiple batches of the same salt and compared them.
Did anyone else catch the Red Sea coral pro salt on the bucket says it mix’s 12.3 to 12.7 dkh. In the Brs video the ICP tests came back as 9.6 top 10 bottom. That makes me wonder how inconsistent the salt is from bucket to bucket. I used to use RSCP but switch to AFRS. Great video randy.
Great work you guys, keep it up!
My biggest take away is Reef Crystals performed "poorly" just as I would suspect and ESV is still the king for consistency. It takes far less work to shake the liquid bottles before use compared to rolling around a full bucket of dry salt.
If you want easy to use, Tropic Marin Pro is continuing to show it is the best dry mix available.
Very helpful for us. Many people will eventually use the whole bucket on their tank, but we have multiple tanks at our headquarters and sometimes deliver salt water to our maintenance customers. Great to have some actual data(even if it is a small sample). We've had all the brands of salt we use tested via ICP, but never top/bottom of buckets.
It’s reassuring that your TMC pro numbers almost perfectly match my bucket in the Uk with 7.5, 450, 1400
It’d be interesting to see if mixing at home would give an appreciable difference from the above numbers. I think that would be the real test on if it is helpful or not
Got an idea,I have access to a vibration paint mixer I'll give it a try.
Great job i was just talking to a local store owner about this subject. Weird....
Great info and put this question to rest as far as I'm concerned. 👍
Dont know if you've done this already but can you guys investigate whether or not the time of day you target feed your corals effect growth rate?
This would be a pretty interesting topic to test!
@@BRStv I agree!! Feel my corals are happier when I feed in the am but could totally just be talking haha... thank you guys for everything you do for the hobby!! Best wishes!!
You mentioned that some of these manufacturers may not be as diligent as we'd like at mixing at the factory. I suggested this before but in light of this video, I'd like to double down on that request for testing.
It'd be useful to see testing data to determine if different brands are more uniform from batch to batch from the factory. As a longer-term test, each time someone at the office opens a bucket, you could (optionally mix up the contents first, then) take a sample and send it in for ICP testing just like you did for this video. This time logging the results and seeing if some manufacturers are more consistent or others have more wild variation from batch to batch. How does it compare to the next shipment you get from that manufacturer? I'm not sure if all of the manufacturers print batch numbers on their packaging, but that'd be helpful for this purpose.
Consistency within a single bucket is one thing, but I think there's great value in consumer confidence that the mix I get from this bucket will be close to what I got from the last one and the ones I'll buy in the future.
So what you're saying is to buy a big enough mixing tank to hold a whole box/bucket of salt like at BRS HQ and never worry about stratification again? ;-)
That's why I like the 50 gallon individual bags of reef crystal
Have you compared levels between bags? I'm thinking possible bigger variance from bag to bag, compared to from one level of big bucket to the next (gradient).
My question is would it make any difference mixing the dry salt mix? I wondering if the separation is from less fine additives used in the manufacturing process. Making so the mix will never fully homogenized.
I would be interesting to see how far the results of mixed salt mix differ from the top and bottom of the bucket. I'm not sure that you'll see us run this test in the near future, but we'll keep that one in mind!
Is 2 little fishes really unique? Doesn't Instant Ocean also sell boxed salt with smaller bags inside? How does it compare from one bag to the next?
Two Little Fishes pre-portions their salt in much smaller sizes than IO (as small as 4.5 gallon portions). I suppose you are correct though, Instant Ocean does have 4 smaller bags within their 200 gallon box.
Good stuff Randy. That said, does it make a difference if I do a mix right before I use? I have a 50 gallon screw top with a PANworld pulling from some uniseals on the bottom and throwing it back in the top then up to my tank (floor above) when ready for a change. I give it about 30 minutes of mixing each time before I do a water change... So, I mix for the 24 hour recommended when it is full (initial mixing) and then do the 30 minutes each and every time before I do a water change to the tank... Do I need to do more or use sooner to avoid the strat? Using HW Reefer if that makes a difference... :)
Wait so the tropic marin classic have phosphates???
How would you mix the dry salt?
Roll the bucket around on the floor before use
I don't believe you have enough data to show this is related to stratification. You are just as easily showing irregularities in the salt quality. You would need to test multiple spots at each depth and at many depths of the storage vessel all the way to the bottom and show a stability horizontally and stratification vertically.
One thing I will say, the the last two buckets of Red Sea blue bucket I got from you guys had one bucket with a spiral crack that went from the bottom to the near the top, and the other the bottom half was completely fractured from the top. Luckily Red Sea has the salt stored in a plastic bag and I could use an old bucket to put the bag into, but damn if this salt wasn't bagged I'd have a cardboard box full of salt and packing foam.
Im glad I use tropic marin pro reef :)
That ESV salt seems like way too much work.
Gabriel Berki agreed
It is super easy. First couple times definitely has a learning curve but after that, it is crazy simple and fast. Not to mention you have fully dissolved and ready to go water in less than 30 minutes. No other salt can even come close to that.
Once you get the hang of it (just follow the instructions on how much you need, measure to make sure you are at the correct salinity, then good to go), and it is super easy. No other salt mixes in under an hour...
Geraud Krawezik pro-reef does
@Sea Dweller I did try Tropic Marine Pro a while back. I was happy with it when the boxes were new (the little ones in cardboard boxes), but then due to the lack of appropriate sealing (they have some kind of glorified cardboard pouch in that size) it was becoming quickly a solid block after a couple of weeks. So while the buckets might be better, these made me go back to ESV. I guess I should have put the whole box inside a sealed plastic pouch, since it does not come with one by default.
Can you mix different salt mixes in same water?
That shows a variation in TLF salt. Can’t measure a bag from the top and one from the bottom. They are individual bags. That’s not stratification, that’s poor mixture at the source of production.
What’s up with that Fritz RPM, though?
They addressed that in one for their first salt mix videos. They didn't include Fritz because they don't sell them. And there are other salts they didn't include as well. It's no mean to cover all salts in the market. So always take the result with ... a grain of salt.
It is a cheap salt with poor quality control and extremely dirty IME
Shao Z ohhhhhhhHHHHHHHHH HEYOOOOO. That zinger tho lmao
I am concerned about the accuracy on the devices that took measurement, Hanna specifies it in their manual that is 5%, therefore, in your comparison everything below 5% is inside the measurement error and has no real difference. Triton does not specify its accuracy which is odd
Something to consider is: how accurate is Triton testing when it comes to making a decision based off them? This is from 2015. reefs.com/magazine/triton-lab-icp-oes-water-testing-154/
I am new to to the hobby but what strikes me about this video is there is lack of a control group. To really determine if stratification occurs and has big enough impact to matter to your typical reef keeper you would need to account for transportation variables.
As an example, someone that lives in or near a coastal city and has distributors nearby could run these tests and have insignificant fluctuations in their salt, while someone in the Midwest could experience dramatically different results if their bucket has to travel by truck for three days over rough roads. Even smaller things could have an impact, such as if the bucket you received was located in the middle of a well wrapped pallet (stable) or if it was a corner bucket that shifted more during transport.
The only way to determine if the difference is due to travel or lack of mixing during manufacturing would be to test these brands at their manufacturing site then simulate a controlled amount of travel/vibration on a new bucket. You would then compare the newly manufactured bucket results to the results after the simulated travel.
Since these are not accounted for in the testing it hasn't proven that the changes are insignificant or that one brand is better or worse with consistency.
This was less to point out the difference between brands, but more to see if stratification was something that occurred. Very true that depending on location the amount could vary, and you very well could receive a salt that is well mixed. Overall I would just take into consideration that this can occur, and that mixing up your salt can be a good idea to avoid variance in levels.
That's why I use liquid salt from ati. Absolut ocean.
Why is the Mg so high in some of these salts?
1400-1500 isn't high. It is actually a great place to be so when doing a water change you rarely have to dose magnesium since you replenish some
This is study suffers from a pretty serious lack of scientific rigor.
a) the "need to mix" percentages are completely arbitrary
b) the icp oes method is not generally used by the scientific community for the broad set of analytes used in marine waters for this test. Some of the differences in top/bottom are less than 5% different. Is the method capable of making that kind of distinction, especially at the low or high end of the limits of detection/quantitation?
c) one sample from the top and bottom is not sufficient for statistical significance if in fact the variability of the sample media is as much as reported.
I'm not saying that the findings are not plausible or realistic. I'm saying the analyses completed are (in my opinion) not sufficient to confirm your hypothesis. This study will affect people's purchasing decisions and as such should be completed with a little more care.
Though I agree with you that the tests are not quite scientifically accurate, I think it's good enough considering all the source of error in the process from making water to testing. Also if a package got rolled over during transit or in their warehouse, it might cause more difference than errors of any testing method.
Very fair feedback here and I absolutely appreciate it. Although we don't conduct each test to the caliber you would expect in a scientific laboratory type of environment, we try our best to maintain some degree of scientific process utilizing the tools available to us (and nearly all other reefers) to bring some sort of clarity and value all of which on a pretty small budget. I completely agree with you that there is room for further accuracy in this test, but without spending a fortune we tried our best to help understand a common question that has been circling the hobby conversation for quite some time now. Hopefully to some reefers there is a bit a value in these efforts.
For the data representation, rather than provide the details for 37-elements across 22 different tests (all of which were results represented in PPM or PPB by the ICP-OES test) we instead presented it in a more easily understood approach using the percent differences between the top and the bottom ppm/ppb reading.
@@BRStv I definitely appreciate what these video series are geared towards. However, my main takeaway really was that even if stratification is real, that ICP-OES isn't the best tool to show it. There are many tried and true analytical methods for elements that are actually meaningful for reefers. Alkalinity, salinity, calcium, and magnesium are easy enough to measure with prosumer grade equipment. I have real doubts that stratification would show as a vast difference in boron or nickel because they exist in such small quantities. If you sampled the same strata 10 times, you would probably see similar variability in the sparser elements.
Another way to show this would be to repeat the same test multiple times in a single "strata" and see how much variance there is. I will be available for all future scientific consulting on your BRS videos :P
Should include fritz. My lfs and myself are having troubles getting it to balance out. We mix it to 1.026sg but the alkalinity, magnesium and calcium are always low. Alk mixes at 6 to 6.4, calcium 260-280 and mag At 1050-1100. Having to buffer the water prior to water changes to be at minimum appropriate levels is getting old.
I agree with you on fritz. I had the same problem and I switch to LivaAquaria salt and there salt is really good. PH 8.0-9.0 CAL 400-450 MAG 1.350-1450 when I got it I checked it with hanna and they were spot on. And really great price for 55 lb 205 gal. Mix
@@jeffjarry4257 LiveAquaria salt is re-branded Fritz salt. Just shows how poor the quality control is
@@jdamommio I fully understand that they test products they carry. I was stating the fact that fritz has been wildly inconsistant.
Main point in my post was to check your mix before doing water changes, even tho not direcrly stated in orginal post.
@@jdamommio all good no harm done lol
Not a good test. Salt mixes aren't homogeneous mixtures and arent made to just make small batches of water from a large salt mix. If you get 175gal salt mix, the entire contents should be mixed at once if you want the levels they advertise. Otherwise you'll never get the same readings twice and mixing it will do nothing but continue that process.
A vast majority of reefers can't or don't need to mix up that much salt at one time. If you're using an entire bucket at once, then you're right. You don't need to pay attention to this test as it doesn't apply to you.
Hmmm wondering if a certain someone triggered this test . Fritz out fucking ppls tanks up
This video topic was actually a suggestion that we had gotten multiple times over on our Reef2Reef sponsor forum as well as in the #AskBRStv Facebook group :)
Balling
Reef Crystals more like reef CRUD. Nasty brown residue and inconsistent.
How do we test for that 🤔
Anton P white paper towel wipe on the mixing container after water change.
@@antonp6917 Run it through a sediment filter. BRS already did this though and it showed how gross it was
I feel like ESV difference between batches was human error.
FRITZ! LIKE REALLY...
Why? They don't carry it and don't plan to.