Making salt water from scratch

[aviator300]

I just read a post on the Pico subforum from a guy that makes his own salt water from scratch..Has anyone heard of this or tried it?

[EL CHUPACABRA]

I just read a post on the Pico subforum from a guy that makes his own salt water from scratch..Has anyone heard of this or tried it?

 

Back in the OG days there was no salt mixes and there were various recipes circulating. Most included at least some natural sea water. A good starting place would to be to message the pico guy and post your findings here. Also try searching around the web for what the chemical composition of various salt mixes include. You could probably also find out the chemical composition of natural seawater some where on the internet. It should then be as simple as sourcing the necessary components and combining them in the right ratio. I would venture a guess that this would exceed the cost of just buying off the shelf mix unless one had access to a well stocked lab or made a significant portion.

[MikeTR]

why bother, salt is already the cheapest expense of the hobby..

[atrox]

You been watching breaking bad?

[aviator300]

You been watching breaking bad?

No, why?

[supernip]

It probably wouldn't be too hard if you are able to get your hand on the correct grade reagents, but it would be expensive as hell and pyrrhic.

[atrox]

No, why?

You ever seen breaking bad?

[jservedio]

It is a really, really bad idea. Sourcing the chemicals you need is going to be hard and expensive (and you typically have to buy huge quantities) and most likely without expensive lab equipment your mix is going to be way, way off. Considering some of the things in the mix are at ppb levels or lower, and small mistakes in concentration can really screw up your tank.

 

If you go down that route you will end up with hundreds of pounds of salt that is most likely useless.

[sangheili]

Dutch Synthetic Reefing... google it He has a spreadsheet that gives you all the ingredients and proper amounts.

 

It is absolutely a good idea and will allow you to mix up a salt batch that is exactly the levels you desire. I will probably be doing this setup with my new tank.

[jservedio]

Dutch Synthetic Reefing... google it He has a spreadsheet that gives you all the ingredients and proper amounts.

 

It is absolutely a good idea and will allow you to mix up a salt batch that is exactly the levels you desire. I will probably be doing this setup with my new tank.

 

Yeah, unless you have the lab equipment to properly measure everything out on a small scale and a good source for reagent grade chemicals, it is going to be an unmitigated disaster.

 

If you have a big community of people making their own salt and you have 20 people to share a bulk order of chemicals with and can split a really high quality analytic balance (over $1000) it will work great, doing it by yourself won't work unless you are a chemist or are really good friends with one.

 

There are literally dozens of salts to chose from and finding one that matches exactly what your parameters are isn't very difficult. If you live in Germany or the Netherlands it might be easy to find a salt-making group within the reefing community, but not here in the US and Canada.

[Grumblecakes]

Its possible. probably not worth it. the guy saying you need a $1k balance is being dramatic. I load rifle and pistol rounds on a $60 dollar scale and it is accurate and precise enough that I shoot tiny little groups and have never been hurt.

 

You can find the various reagents if you get creative. lab grade chemicals are expensive and not what you need/want. Food grade should be fine and a lot cheaper.

 

Unless you are making a ton of salt it would still be easier and less hassle just to buy it.

[NorthGaHillbilly]

Its possible. probably not worth it. the guy saying you need a $1k balance is being dramatic. I load rifle and pistol rounds on a $60 dollar scale and it is accurate and precise enough that I shoot tiny little groups and have never been hurt.

 

You can find the various reagents if you get creative. lab grade chemicals are expensive and not what you need/want. Food grade should be fine and a lot cheaper.

 

Unless you are making a ton of salt it would still be easier and less hassle just to buy it.

Good to know Im not the only one rolling my own around here. Ive got a high end scale for my realoading, but just go with my cheap digital for anything but over sami rifle loads

[Reefwiser]

Here is GlennF mixing a batch of salt.

 

Another salt that is near to mixing up this way is ESV salt.

 

 

Both are great methods and allow you to use the salt right away. As they do not need to settle.

[jservedio]

Its possible. probably not worth it. the guy saying you need a $1k balance is being dramatic. I load rifle and pistol rounds on a $60 dollar scale and it is accurate and precise enough that I shoot tiny little groups and have never been hurt.

 

You can find the various reagents if you get creative. lab grade chemicals are expensive and not what you need/want. Food grade should be fine and a lot cheaper.

 

Unless you are making a ton of salt it would still be easier and less hassle just to buy it.

 

There is a HUGE difference between making salt and handloading rifle cartridges where you are only measuing down to the nearest tenth of a gram at best and being off by a few few tenths is no biggie. If you are mixing up a batch of salt you are looking at sub-milligram measurements for some of the lower concentration trace elements - do you know how much a balance capable of milligram resolution costs, forget even sub-milligram?

 

Inexpensive scales are going to go down to the 10th of a GRAM, not tenths of a milligram... A $60 digital scale isn't even going to get you into the ballpark.

 

Lets use strontium as an example - it's not even that small of a trace element and is critically important, 8-10ppm in seawater. Say you were making a batch of 50g worth of salt, that's about 14lbs. Using Strontium Chloride, you would need to measure out something like 10 mg, or 0.01g - less than 1/100 of a teaspoon. And that's an easy one too - what about Iodide? In seawater its naturally at about 0.05ppm. For your 50g mix of sewater, you would be having ot measure in in tenths of a milligram to get it right. Want to tell me how you are going to do that with your $60 scale?

 

The only way to do the trace elements is as a liquid - and doing that it isn't a salt mix. Literally every time you make up a batch of water, you will be manually putting in a good 8 or 10 trace elements at the least that have to be precicely measured. And even then, it is still missing a huge number of lesser ions that we know little about that are in commercial mixes.

[MikeTR]

just ...... use...... reef crystals ...... baking soda... and bulk calcium chloride

 

https://flic.kr/p/pa7RAJ'>

 

It don't get any better imo..

[cju84]

I dunno Mike, your tank could use a little more color

[sangheili]

There is a HUGE difference between making salt and handloading rifle cartridges where you are only measuing down to the nearest tenth of a gram at best and being off by a few few tenths is no biggie. If you are mixing up a batch of salt you are looking at sub-milligram measurements for some of the lower concentration trace elements - do you know how much a balance capable of milligram resolution costs, forget even sub-milligram?

 

Inexpensive scales are going to go down to the 10th of a GRAM, not tenths of a milligram... A $60 digital scale isn't even going to get you into the ballpark.

 

Lets use strontium as an example - it's not even that small of a trace element and is critically important, 8-10ppm in seawater. Say you were making a batch of 50g worth of salt, that's about 14lbs. Using Strontium Chloride, you would need to measure out right around 50mg, or 0.05g - the equivalent of around 3/100 of a teaspoon. And that's an easy one too - what about Iodide? In seawater its naturally at about 0.05ppm. For your 50g mix of sewater, you would be having ot measure in in tenths of a milligram to get it right. Want to tell me how you are going to do that with your $60 scale?

 

I think you're kind of blowing this out of proportion. The trace elements can easily be added with high quality supplements. To mix good salt you really only need: Salt, Calc, Alk, Magnesium. Iodide is a horrible example as it can easily be added in liquid form very easily.

 

And lets not confuse the fact that overloading a handgun cartridge (esp. a caliber like 5.7x28mm) can result in a blown up hand or death, much more dangerous then forgetting to put in iodide on your 10% water change.

 

I think you should watch the video posted above about GlennF mixing his own salt. He seems to do great and doesn't have any of the issues you are bringing up.

 

 

just ...... use...... reef crystals ...... baking soda... and bulk calcium chloride

 

 

It don't get any better imo..

 

 

 

No doubt people see success with every major salt brand on the market. Those salts all have different trade offs however. Reef Crystals for example uses a caking agent to bind the metal contaminants in their salt and keep that from hurting the organisms in your tank (I believe it chelates the metals, but I could be wrong - I didn't pay much attention in Chemistry class).

 

Some people, myself included, like to know exactly each element being put into the tank and try our best to control it. But its a huge tradeoff in time/simplicity for sure. I really think mixing your own salt only works if you go "all in" on a method like DSR where you are also supplementing with the same elements and doing little to no water changes.

[jservedio]

And lets not confuse the fact that overloading a handgun cartridge (esp. a caliber like 5.7x28mm) can result in a blown up hand or death, much more dangerous then forgetting to put in iodide on your 10% water change.

My point was orders of magnitude. When you are handloading, you aren't measuring in milligrams. Yes, of course you can do everything as a liquid, but then you are giving up the salt mix.

[sangheili]

The original premise of this thread never mentioned mixing up and storing dry salt. I agree that would be challenging.