New marine distribution company Platinum Reef Products has begun manufacturing and supplying its own reef salt recipes. The UK distributor of Cade and Illumagic has engineered the two salts to suit either SPS dominant or Mixed Reef aquariums with their Unique Selling Point being that they are made in the UK. The synthetic salt mixes are made from pharmaceutical-grade ingredients (according to the manufacturer,) enriched with trace elements, and then engineered to either mimic natural seawater or slightly elevated parameters to suit individual user and reef tank requirements.
The SPS Platinum Reef Salt achieves a KH of 7.5-8, Calcium of 420-450ppm, and a Magnesium level of 1250-1300ppm when mixed to 1.025 specific gravity. The mixed reef Platinum Reef Salt Plus recipe provides a KH of 8.5-9, Calcium of 420-450ppm, and a Magnesium level of 1350-1400ppm at 1.025 s.g. Both salts achieve a pH of 8.3, according to Platinum Reef.
The salt market is a tough one to break into, with dozens of good, proven salts to choose from, many of which are now ICP batch tested and have hundreds of thousands of happy users around the world.
The Platinum Reef salts are made in small batches and ICP tested too, with the advantage (to UK reefers at least,) being that it won’t have the global shipping costs bolted on that other international salts may have. And that helps to keep the price down to £58.99/$77.26 for a 24kg/53lb bucket. 5kg and 10kg buckets are also available.
