Natural Sea Water (NSW) is great, depending on where you can collect it. Near shore water I wouldn't use because of the very likely possibility of picking up various pollutants. It may look "clean and clear" but I wouldn't trust it. There are people that treat all
NSW with bleach for a couple of days, then neutralize the bleach and use the
NSW after that. It seems a drastic step to take to use
NSW. Synthetic sea salts, Instant Ocean for example, are so well formulated now days it seems pointless to collect
NSW from shore. That said...
I have been going 7 miles off-shore out of Ft. Pierce, FL and bringing back 75 gallons of
NSW for use in my 135 reef. It's stored in 55 gallon blue barrels out side in the sun. The water gets quite warm on
hot days and quite cool some days/nights during our cool period in winter. The only other "treatment" I give it is to bring in 40 gallons, put it in a Brute trash can and filter it through a 50 micron filter sock using a Mag 24 pump for a day (some times only hours). I've been using it for 9 months, changing 35 gallons about every two weeks. The only noticeable difference was in the initial water changes. The softies in my reef really perked up and seemed to thank me. The rest of the corals and fish didn't seem to care.
If you have to collect from shore, I'd raise a big caution flag and say it isn't worth it. Stick with synthetic sea salt.
Dick
P.S. My running off-shore was never about saving money on salt. It cost much more to collect than to use synthetic. Now, with gas nearing $4 a gallon, I dearly wish I hadn't spent $22,000 on the boat 9 months ago. We won't be going out much until gas prices come back down. If they come down at all. We Americans are in for some drastic lifestyle changes, I'm afraid.
P.S.S. It's not all Bush's fault either.
