Petco Ocean water!

[Overlook reef]

After reading about LedReef using Petco Ocean Water, I decided to use it yesterday for my weekly 5 gal water change. I may be imagining this, but I believe I can see a difference right away. The polyp extension seems better than I have ever seen! Is this possible?!? I use Red Sea Coral Pro and love it, but I feel I can see a difference! Has anyone else had this same experience besides LedReef?

 

[nemodan]

I have been using the Petco Ocean Water for almost 2 months now in my 14 and 12 G tanks. All is OK and polyps extencions are good too. I have seen a continuous encrusting growth but only a small growth in the acros tips. My 12 G is full SPS.

I measured Ca and alk last week and was 360 and 5 dkh. I changed 4 G yesterday and tomorrow I will measure again. Looks like for my bioload of SPS y will have to start supplementing again.

But YES....the Petco Ocean Water is working OK. But 3-4 gallons change per week in my SPS of 12 G + 3 G refugium tank, with my bioload, is not enough to keep the parameters the water has in the box. I will have to supplement.

 

[Overlook reef]

I have a 34 gal SPS dominated tank and I was thinking about the Cal and ALk long term Also, the cost would be a lot more. I am wondering what is the big difference that would make my corals react like that?

 

[nemodan]

I have been looking all around in internet and was not able to find an answer to your question. Could be all the microelements present in the ocean water are not lost on the cleaning process used by the manufacturer. In the case of the salts mix, those elements are added but how can you be sure you mix them at home in the correct way. I got an advertisement this week from one of the big internet seller concerning a new German mix salt. The factory waranted you will have all the elements in the correct proportion if you USE THE FULL BOX to make the water in one shot. They add " we can not waranty the correct balance of elements if you use just part of the salt mix unless YOU MIX VERY WELL the box". The factory details the levels of a big list of water components. BUT in order to obtain those results you should use the full box at once.

I believe on those points is the answer. Se table on this article: How can you waraty to have all these in the correct balance in an artificial mix :

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/

Concerning $$ , in my case, I do not have rodi water. So I was buying reef crystals salts + destile water. The cost to make 5G water, in my case, was $8 and the Petco ocean water cost me $12. Those $4 for me aren't a killer. The corals are very happy with it, so I will continue using it but will start to pay attention to the Ca and Alk numbers again.

 

[Ledreef]

 

[Ledreef]

 

[Ledreef]

and happy tank. Or super tank

 

[dz6t]

I have been using the Petco Ocean Water for almost 2 months now in my 14 and 12 G tanks. All is OK and polyps extencions are good too. I have seen a continuous encrusting growth but only a small growth in the acros tips. My 12 G is full SPS.

I measured Ca and alk last week and was 360 and 5 dkh. I changed 4 G yesterday and tomorrow I will measure again. Looks like for my bioload of SPS y will have to start supplementing again.

But YES....the Petco Ocean Water is working OK. But 3-4 gallons change per week in my SPS of 12 G + 3 G refugium tank, with my bioload, is not enough to keep the parameters the water has in the box. I will have to supplement.

For many acros, they encrust faster then shoot up with tips.
that is normal.

 

[dz6t]

View attachment 92208

you should not get that level of calcium and alk from Petco water. Do you have a secret batch?

 

[dz6t]

I have been looking all around in internet and was not able to find an answer to your question. Could be all the microelements present in the ocean water are not lost on the cleaning process used by the manufacturer. In the case of the salts mix, those elements are added but how can you be sure you mix them at home in the correct way. I got an advertisement this week from one of the big internet seller concerning a new German mix salt. The factory waranted you will have all the elements in the correct proportion if you USE THE FULL BOX to make the water in one shot. They add " we can not waranty the correct balance of elements if you use just part of the salt mix unless YOU MIX VERY WELL the box". The factory details the levels of a big list of water components. BUT in order to obtain those results you should use the full box at once.

I believe on those points is the answer. Se table on this article: How can you waraty to have all these in the correct balance in an artificial mix :

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/

Concerning $$ , in my case, I do not have rodi water. So I was buying reef crystals salts + destile water. The cost to make 5G water, in my case, was $8 and the Petco ocean water cost me $12. Those $4 for me aren't a killer. The corals are very happy with it, so I will continue using it but will start to pay attention to the Ca and Alk numbers again.

You have a very good point about synthetic salt mix won't have every elements in natural sea water. That is why Red sea coral pro receive so much good review, because it is made out of evaporated sea water then fortified with Cal, Alk and Mag.

 

[Overlook reef]

you should not get that level of calcium and alk from Petco water. Do you have a secret batch?

I agree! That seems high, especially the alk.

 

[Overlook reef]

You have a very good point about synthetic salt mix won't have every elements in natural sea water. That is why Red sea coral pro receive so much good review, because it is made out of evaporated sea water then fortified with Cal, Alk and Mag.

I use Red Sea Coral Pro and my levels are good. I have been very happy with the results, but I feel like I noticed a slight difference after using Petco Ocean Water. I can not say that I have not had good results with Red Sea Coral Pro. My Calcium stays around 420-430, Alk stays around 9 at 1.026 SG.
I also use kalkwasser in my ATO

 

[nemodan]

View attachment 92208

This data is wrong. Ocean water do not have 11dkh

I measured today my levels after the 5 G change i did Friday night. As mentioned tank is 12G + 3G refugium.

Alk 7.5 dkh
Ca. 410
Ph goes from 7.8 to 8.3 (night to day. Refugium has same light cycle as tank)
Salinity 1025-1026 in all the boxes i opened the last 2 months.

Corals are driving very well. I will post pictures later.

THANK YOU DONG !!! For the tip on acro growing.

Daniel

 

[nemodan]

Corals are driving very well. I will post pictures later.

Tank had cycled, but it is not yet "mature". All corals you see have between 1 week (some frags) and 2-3 months (at least 3/4 of them). All of them growing during the last 2 months under PETCO Ocean Water. Polyps well extended. I have not added any supplement during these 2 months, neither I have done any measurement. I keep changing 3-4 G of PECTO ocean water per week. Now, that the tank has an important bio-load will star measuring once a week Ca and Alk to know what is going on and if there is any need to start again to supplement or not.

When I was using Reef Crystals for the first months of the tank I was supplementing for Ca and Alk to keep it at 410-420 and 7-8 dkh. When I started to add PETCO ocean water I stopped supplementing the tank. All has been going great, at least for the last 2 months.








Tank is a Mr. Aqua rimless book shelf style 36x9x8"

 

[dz6t]

Great looking tank. BTW, I have another piece of the grape cap you can have for free.

 

[P-Nut]

you should not get that level of calcium and alk from Petco water. Do you have a secret batch?

This data is wrong. Ocean water do not have 11dkh

I measured today my levels after the 5 G change i did Friday night. As mentioned tank is 12G + 3G refugium.

Alk 7.5 dkh
Ca. 410
Ph goes from 7.8 to 8.3 (night to day. Refugium has same light cycle as tank)
Salinity 1025-1026 in all the boxes i opened the last 2 months.

Corals are driving very well. I will post pictures later.

THANK YOU DONG !!! For the tip on acro growing.

Daniel

I believe he supplements.
The Petco water is good, but it is not magic. The corals will consume the Calcium to grow, specially when only doing bi-weekly water changes.

 

[saltwaterB]

no, he doses...and also does not use petco water only...uses Nutri Seawater (a differet box water) 10x better than "petco" box water. Unfortunately LEDreef does not always fill in the complete details...and just like everyone else has issues with his tank that you all don't get to see...
But I will say, he even proves me wrong from time to time, so he must have some magic reef dust or something...but it is for sure NOT the "petco" water that is the secret.

Box water in general is great and gives something to the tanks that synthetic water never could. I have done nano tanks with only box water, and there is a different consistency in there...things stay in suspension much better than in synthetic sea salt. Only problem is in a tank over 20 gallons it is not really economical.(depending on the situation) and you will most likely still have to dose supplements if you keep Corals. We have a lot of customers that will do a change with the box water every few months to replace bacteria counts.
My best experience is with the nutria-seawater product, and in situations like on "tanked". Where the tank is in a commercial situation and here is no time for cycling. we use live sand, fully cured live rock, and 100% Nutri-Seawater...and instant tank...add a bottle f Dr. Tim's one and only bacteria over the next week and as long as we don't go crazy with Fish...no problems.
But personally, I don't think I would trust it long term on an SPS reef...just me though?

 

[wdebenedettojr]

I think the petco water and the nutri seawater are both overrated and expensive. I have seen incredible reef tanks that have been using salt mix not ocean water. Like B said, if you have a nano tank it's worth it because it's not expensive. However the majority of us have larger than 20 gallon tanks, it would cost an arm and a leg to constantly be using that. I have just seen way way to many successful thriving reef tanks with mixing salt to say this "ocean water" is the key to having a nice tank.

 

[stingythingy45]

+1

Growth and cost is what I strive for. This might be fine for a nano, but not for larger tanks.
Besides Petco used to have it's own salt brand. And when I got into the hobby I started using that salt.
I had nothing but issues with it and nearly quit the hobby. Thank goodness I switched over to just plain old supplemented I.O.

 

[nemodan]

I think the petco water and the nutri seawater are both overrated and expensive. I have seen incredible reef tanks that have been using salt mix not ocean water. Like B said, if you have a nano tank it's worth it because it's not expensive. However the majority of us have larger than 20 gallon tanks, it would cost an arm and a leg to constantly be using that. I have just seen way way to many successful thriving reef tanks with mixing salt to say this "ocean water" is the key to having a nice tank.

- It was said many of times that is expensive compared with the home made water ......we all agree that !!!

- It was said that Ocean water is not magic. You can use it but if you overfeed or overload the tank or etc, it will fail as any home made water.........we all agree on that !!!

In another word, it is not magic, it is just "Ocean Water". With pros and cons.

Ocean Water
Pros:
- Has all the components of ocean water.
- Easy to prepare (you heat it, measure salinity just in case and done)
Cons:
- It is more expensive.

Home made water (salt mix):
Pros:
-It is cheaper than Ocean Water
- With good water quality to dissolve the salt mixture corals drive healthy.
Cons:
- Does it have all the micro/macro elements that Ocean water has ? I do not know.
- If the salt mixture has all the ocean elements added by the manufacturer I can assure that unless you dissolve all the salt mixture bag at once, it will be difficult to obtain an homogenous mixture.

Bottom line: Corals drive healthy in both waters (ocean or home made). If you follow all the basic of reef husbandry, good water quality for the salt mix, tank maintenance and supplementation (if needed) both waters will drive coral growth without any issue. No doubt here, no discussion on this point.

My final opinion "as a Biologist" is that "if I have the money to pay for Ocean Water I will go for it". Why ? because it is natural ocean water and there is nothing better than natural products (if not modified at the manufacturer).

Today I can afford Ocean Water because I only need 5 G per week. If instead I would need 40G biweekly changes then I will not be able to afford it and I will be using salt mixtures.

My way of thinking will be the same" nothing better than a natural product" independently if I can or can not afford it.