Keeping coral inevitably means that you have to “build” your own saltwater – your own seawater – and you have too often do it from scratch.
This is especially true if you don’t live out near the ocean where you can get your hands on a steady supply of clean and consistently high quality seawater straight from the source.
Luckily, though, thanks to products like Red Sea Coral Pro Salt it’s a whole lot easier to mix up your own seawater than it ever was in the past.
You just have to be careful when mixing up this concoction. And that’s why we have put together the detailed tips and tricks we share below.
Let’s jump right in!
How Do You Use Coral Pro Salt?
Using Red Sea Coral Pro Salt is about as simple and as straightforward as can be.
Sold in compact little buckets (with enough salt to mix up at least 10 L of water), all you really have to do is add this premium quality sea salt combo to create a high alkalinity water that your coral will thrive in.
The idea here is to use this pretty mixed up concoction to balance out your water levels almost immediately and provide a rock solid base of nutrition for your coral – seawater just absolutely brimming with calcium, magnesium, and tons of bicarbonates.
Instead of having to combine all different kinds of raw ingredients together, Coral Pro Salt comes “straight out of the box” with more than 70 individual chemical elements that have a huge impact on both the chemical stability of your seawater as well as the nutritional content your coral needs.
This stuff is a game changer!
Not only are you going to be able to use this to establish your saltwater set up for your coral, but you’re also going to be able to use this mixture to replenish your tank water on a regular basis.
All the nutrients you need and all the resources your reef demands (resources that are otherwise going to be quickly depleted and aquarium set up) are all available in each individual bucket.
It doesn’t get a whole lot better than that, does it?
Best of all, all you really have to do to use Coral Pro Salt is add the appropriate amount of this pretty mixed concoction into a specific amount of water, allow it to set up and distribute throughout the water, and then you are good to go.
Coral Pro Salt isn’t quite “set it and forget it”.
But it’s pretty close.
How Do You Mix Red Sea Coral Pro Salt Per Gallon?
While it’s possible to adjust the amount of Red Sea Coral Pro Salt you add to each individual gallon of water you’re looking to turn into seawater, especially when you’re trying to really dial in the environment for a specific type of coral, most folks are going to want to stick to the standardized ratio provided from the manufacturer.
The folks behind Red Sea Coral Pro Salt recommend that you add about ½ cup of this stuff to every single gallon of water you’re looking to convert into seawater.
Again, though, depending on the kind of coral you are keeping (and depending on the rest of the life you keep in your tank) you might need to add a little bit more than that – or perhaps even a little bit less.
When you’re starting out, though, it’s best to stick with the ½ cup to each gallon of water ratio and then tinker with things from there.
How Do You Mix Red Sea Coral Pro Salt Per 5 Gallons?
Since the folks behind the Red Sea Coral Pro Salt concoction say that you should go with ½ cup of this salt combination for every gallon of water, that means you’re going to want to shoot for 2.5 cups of this stuff for every 5 gallons.
That works out to about 700 g per 5 gallons of water (give or take), if you’re looking to weigh this stuff out and get a real consistent measurement for your saltwater environment.
And for those that really want to take things to the next level, you’re basically looking to achieve a salinity level that hovers around 30 PPT. That seems like the “sweet spot” for most types of coral, as well as anything else that really thrives in a saltwater tank environment.
How Long Does It Take for Red Sea Coral Pro Salt to Mix?
While we would love to tell you that it’s only going to take a couple of minutes for Red Sea Coral Pro Salt to mix up and evenly dispersed throughout the entirety of your freshwater environment, that’s not really the way this works.
You’re going to want to use a submerged pump to make sure that the salt gets fully dissolved, but you’re still going to want to buckle up for anywhere between an hour to two hours of active mixing before you get that fully dissolved water state you’re looking for.
At the same time, though, you want to make sure that you aren’t pushing your mixture any further beyond that two hour time limit.
It’s also really important that you avoid pumping any air bubbles into the mix. Both of those things – too much mixing for too long and too many air bubbles – will inevitably contribute to unnecessary levels of precipitation, throwing your pH and salinity levels all out of whack and generally just wreaking havoc on your new seawater mixture.
No, stick to mixing for about an hour to two hours (maximum) with a fully submerged pump system and you won’t have to wait any longer than that.
Smaller amounts of seawater that you are mixing up (like a gallon at a time) can be mixed for less than 60 minutes to 120 minutes, of course. You’re going to want to shoot for about 30 minutes to 40 minutes of mixing when dealing with smaller quantities of water – anything under 5 gallons, really.
As soon as you hit that 5 gallon quantity, though, shoot for an hour to two hours and you’ll be good to go!
