Instant Ocean gave me Instant Headache

[goochs]

I have been using coralife salts the one marked lab grade and have been very pleased except for my ph level 8.0
After reading so many praises about instant ocean I tried it!!
My ca usually ran about 420 to 450 but recently started to drop. I do not have corals just a fowlr tank.
I test yesterday and today and found it down to 400.. this was after a 10% change with instant ocean.
Something I failed to do was check the instant ocean before I used it so today I did and at 1.026 sg have a ca of 350ppm
I use seachems test and check it against the reference.
I mixed up some corallife salt and it was at 480ppm. Now I do expect both of these to lower slightly after 24hours.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

IO does traditionally have the calcium at about what you found. FWIW, I don't think that is much of a problem as we all supplement calcium anyway. I choose to use IO over other salts.

I don't care much for Coralife for reasons involving chemicals that we can't control (like excessive lithium, at least in the past).

Here's an analysis:

The Composition Of Several Synthetic Seawater Mixes
http://web.archive.org/web/20030608135355/http://www.animalnetwork.com/fish2/aqfm/1999/mar/features/1/default.asp

[goochs]

thanks for the info I guess I'll keep it and not throw it on the sidewalk (frozen north) and use it if I start kalk dosing..
As far as the lithium it sure didn't tone down my aggressive fish:lol:

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You're welcome.

Happy Reefing. :)