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Salt not dissolving?


acabgd

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I am using AquaMedic salt for my nano reef, this is what I've got from my LFS when I bought water and LR.

 

However, as always, the salt dissolves very slowly and usually doesn't dissolve all the way, always leaving a bit on the bottom.

 

The same happened today, I mixed the salt this morning around 10am, left the bucket with a small powerhead running, came back home in the evening to find some salt residue still at the bottom of the bucket.

 

Is this normal? I have not used any other salt brand except this one so I have no idea what to expect.

 

Here is the photo after some 6 hours of powerhead running in the water. Obviously I did first mix by hand to get it somewhat dissolved.

 

post-71436-1331592173_thumb.jpg

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Islandoftiki

Interesting, I get this too. I mix my salt water in a 5 gallon bucket a week ahead of time using a heater and a mini-jet 404 pump laying sideways in the bottom.

 

I've also noticed a little bit of what looks like calcium film on the heater and pump. The water checks out in spec when I test it though. I'm using IO Reef Crystals

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What's your water temp?

Well it's room temperature, so not extra cold at all. Definitely not tank temperature, but not freezing either.

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Looks like you need a bigger pump to mix your water ;)

It seems I really do, but I've seen people on YouTube mixing salt and water for like 10 minutes with a large plastic spoon or whatever and that's all.

 

I've tried stirring for like 15 minutes at least (+ the pump running for hours) and the end result is the same.

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Islandoftiki
What's your water temp?

 

My water is 79-80 degrees. Perhaps we need larger powerheads? It looks like he's using a similar one to mine. I would think it would all dissolve even with out massive flow.

 

I wonder if this could be the key to why my Alk is dropping to 5 by the end of the week.

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I had that issue with Reef Crystals no matter what i did with a 900 gph pump in a 5 gallon bucket with 4 gallons of water. Once i switched to Red Sea Coral Pro the issues stopped even without heating the water to 77 degrees. If there is any remaining salt, i stirred it with a spoon and its gone in seconds.

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I had that issue with Reef Crystals no matter what i did with a 900 gph pump in a 5 gallon bucket with 4 gallons of water. Once i switched to Red Sea Coral Pro the issues stopped even without heating the water to 77 degrees. If there is any remaining salt, i stirred it with a spoon and its gone in seconds.

I have some Red Sea Coral Pro which I didn't use yet, because I didn't want to switch suddenly in order not to shock my corals. Now when you say this, my next water mix will be with Red Sea!

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I had that issue with Reef Crystals no matter what i did with a 900 gph pump in a 5 gallon bucket with 4 gallons of water. Once i switched to Red Sea Coral Pro the issues stopped even without heating the water to 77 degrees. If there is any remaining salt, i stirred it with a spoon and its gone in seconds.

 

 

I've been mixing Red Sea Coral Pro since last night (22+ hours ago) with a Koralia 425 in a 5G bucket and i can barely see the power head at the bottom of the bucket. About an hour ago i dropped in another powerhead, the return pump that came with BC29.

 

The water is still milky white.

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It seems I really do, but I've seen people on YouTube mixing salt and water for like 10 minutes with a large plastic spoon or whatever and that's all.

 

I've tried stirring for like 15 minutes at least (+ the pump running for hours) and the end result is the same.

My aquavitro salt dissolves in 5 minutes. Maybe you got a bad batch of salt.

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I noticed with IO and Coralife salt these granules won't dissolve.

 

I use Oceanic and it fully dissolves and have used Red Sea non Pro with same results.

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OMG, here it goes. Salt (at least for marine aquariums) come from 2 different sources:

 

- Underground salt mines.

- Harvested directly from sea water.

 

Recently, at my local marine aquarium society monthly meeting (SWFMAS) we had one of Red Sea representatives explaining all concerns about salt mixes for aquarium use, among other things, and what not. He brought to attention that your particular issue is common in marine salts that are from "underground mines" since they are not so pure due to the fact that the rock salt is encrusted with other "rocks", mainly lime rock. So that little residue, harmless in fact, is how you can tell that your salt is not the purest.

 

Though I already knew some of the things he said but he explained some more to the detail. I use red sea coral pro with good results. Though I used in the past Instant Ocean, Kent Marine and even PETCO brand I still would not change my current salt brand. I am not saying is the best of the best but so far I can not complain with the results.

 

BTW, 6 hours is sufficient mixing time, just try with a small bag of a different brand. There are many brands in the market. Look for reviews first. Frank.

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He brought to attention that your particular issue is common in marine salts that are from "underground mines" since they are not so pure due to the fact that the rock salt is encrusted with other "rocks", mainly lime rock. So that little residue, harmless in fact, is how you can tell that your salt is not the purest.

 

 

Right, but if this was true for this particular salt mix, everyone would be having the same issues, don't you think so?

And this little white residue would immediately settle on EVERYTHING in your tank.

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Islandoftiki

Just to reassure myself, I tested the IO Reef crystals and 0 tds ro/di saltwater mix that's been stewing in my 5 gallon bucket for the past 5 days with a mini-jet 404 and a heater set to 79. I wanted to make sure Alk and Calc were normal. Alk was 9 dkh, and Calc was 500. The pump and heater were coated in a white/beige residue and there was a little tiny bit of solids in the bottom and on the walls of the bucket.

 

Edit: I should note. 1.025 sg measured witn digital refractometer.

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My "residue" was not other than salt, once I stirred like crazy for like 5 mins it started to dissolve, but very slowly. Water that I use is commercial distilled water and apart from low dKh which I dose for, the water is very pure. I go for 1.026sg but this happens even when I add just a couple of spoons of salt, whatever the amount and salinity.

I agree that my powerhead is weak, but I have a 7g pico/nano and I'm changing about 1g of water, therefore even this tiny powerhead (rated at 90g/h) is able to stir the water in the small 2g bucket. The stirring provided by the powerhead is certainly not violent, but water does move and after 6 hours I would expect salt to be dissolved.

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I use instant ocean reef salt (purple top) and I barely have to stir it to make it dissolve completely at room temps. I'm always curious why people need to use pumps to mix water.. I mix it with distilled water.

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I use instant ocean reef salt (purple top) and I barely have to stir it to make it dissolve completely at room temps. I'm always curious why people need to use pumps to mix water.. I mix it with distilled water.

Well that's what I thought, so it's about salt brand, not that I'm doing anything wrong...

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It should dissolve almost immediately with stirring. The pumps are just for consistency throughout the bucket. It'd suck to have 1.022 at the bottom, and 1.030 at the top lol!

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Well that's what I thought, so it's about salt brand, not that I'm doing anything wrong...

 

Well...

 

I hate to say it, but probably a little of both your fault and the salt's. :)

 

First About The Salt

 

Salts that have "normal" levels of calcium (e.g. Instant Ocean) seem to dissolve to clear in a very short time and with fairly little effort compared to "fortified" salts (e.g. Red Sea, Reef Crystals, etc). The milling of the crystals has an effect on mixing as well. For example, about 5 years ago if you compared a sample of Instant Ocean or Reef Crystals to a sample of one of the Tropic Marin salts, you would see some crystals in the Instant Ocean products that were up to 1/8" across, but the Tropic Marin products were the consistency of powder (like baby powder) through and through. A few years ago Aquarium Systems changed the processing and now Instant Ocean and Reef Crystals are all powdery like Tropic Marin. This change was good for making their salts faster-dissolving like the Tropic Marin products, but terrible for end-user handling due to the dustiness inherent to the powder.

 

I'm not familiar with the details of your brand of salt, but if you Google (or Duck Duck Go) around for people who've posted test results from a fresh-mixed batch of your salt and test your own fresh mixed batch (comparing will let you know if you're getting typical results in your end product or not). My guess is that it's got fairly elevated mineral levels though.

 

Now About You

 

As long as you're starting with RO/DI-quality water - test TDS to be sure - then more than likely your weak mixing solution combined with a highly enriched salt mix is all the problem there is. We'll focus on the part of that you can change and you'll then be all set for any salt mix you want to choose.

 

In spite of seeing lots of people on the internet mix salt your way, what you (and they) are doing is only slightly better than the old-fashioned heater+airstones method. ;) You are actually running a settling chamber instead of a mixing chamber! (Try to find a video of how a vortex pond filter or shop vac work to make particles do what your salt is doing.)

 

Instead, make your pump aim at the bottom of the mixing chamber instead of across it. You may have to be creative to make this happen depending on your pump.

 

Also, if you use a heater, I would stop. Heating the water actually encourages precipitation of Calcium (but I don't think that's what you're seeing since you say it dissolves when you finally encourage it). Maybe more importantly you probably don't need it. An exception which hopefully doesn't apply to you is if you're trying to mix salt into 50ºF tap water in the middle of winter. Or maybe also if you had a reason to do a water change larger than 20%. Some preheating and other pre-treatment would then be advised. However, your purified water for your 10%-20% water change will be sitting there at room temperature to start with and will have a mixing pump (aka heater) running in it during mixing. Unless the ambient temperature for your mixing area is a lot less than 70ºF ,the pump's heat should be all the heat you need. So it's ok for water change water temp to be less than tank water temp. Nobody temp. acclimates hurricanes or other rain storms on the ocean do they??? :) FWIW, I mix in five-gallon buckets, my mixing area tends to be around 69º-70º and I've never used more heater than what's provided by the Korallia 2 or 4 I use for mixing.

 

-Matt

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