Best Aquarium Salt Brands According to Tank of the Month Winners 2024

Introduction

Using high-quality sea salt is crucial for the thriving growth of corals—this is my hypothesis. I've always wondered which brand of coral salt leads to the best results. While it's easy to check which salts are most popular on e-commerce platforms like Amazon, popularity doesn't necessarily equate to the best performance.

I believe the most reliable information comes from the winners of the Tank of the Month contests. While many stunning tanks might not participate, the experiences of these award-winning reef keepers are invaluable. By using the same sea salts they do, our chances of success could improve.

This is the rationale behind this page.

How We Gathered the Data

First, I compiled a list of all Tank of the Month winners from Reef2Reef.com, ReefKeeping.com, and Nano-Reef.com. I recorded the sea salt brands each tank owner used. Not all tank owners disclosed their sea salt brand, and some used natural seawater.

For simplicity, I grouped all sub-products under their main brands, even if some products had a Pro version.

Some tank owners used multiple types of sea salt, mixing two or even three kinds. In these cases, each salt brand was recorded individually.

The Tank of the Month contest on ReefKeeping.com ended in 2003, and Nano-Reef.com stopped in 2021. Currently, only Reef2Reef.com continues the contest, so there isn't much data for 2024.

Top 3 Salt Brands Used

Here are the sea salt brands most commonly used by award-winning aquarists. These brands have stood the test of time and have a strong reputation in the community.

Among them, Instant Ocean is the most affordable, while Tropic Marin, a German brand, is known for its quick dissolution and lack of residue.

Red Sea has gained increasing popularity among hobbyists in recent years.

• Instant Ocean
• Red Sea
• Tropic Marin

Why is it not recommended to compare water quality parameters?

Different sea salts can cause variations in water parameters, such as KH levels. Corals in a reef tank absorb these essential elements, which we regularly replenish through dosing or calcium reactors.

When it comes to trace elements, without ICP testing, the margin of error is significant, making it difficult to establish a relationship between the differences in each salt’s trace elements and the health of the corals.

Therefore, I personally do not recommend getting too fixated on these element parameters. As long as the sea salt remains consistent across different batches, the approval of hobbyists is more important.

 

Check the Statistics Yourself

You can explore the detailed statistics using the interactive filters below. View the usage of various sea salt brands by year and source to understand the preferences of reef tank winners:

• Year: Filter by specific years to see trends over time, from 2002 to 2024.
• Source: Choose among ReefKeeping, Reef2Reef, and NanoReef to see data from different communities.