Salt mixing

[Derekcaudill]

Ok guys so to help me out a little I went a bought a large rubbermaid container to mix my salt and water in. i upgraded my BC29 to the Maxi1200 and took the stock pump and layed it in the Rubbermaid container to do the mixing for me. After about 2 or 3 hours of mixing the water starts to become real milky and creates a white film against the container under the water level. Whats going on with this???

[Markushka]

what exactly are you doing? What type of salt? how are you determining how much to put in? and maybe a pic would help.

[harrychau]

hi,

i had this happen before but it was from some old salt(got wet over a year old), i think it was instant ocean.

 

might seems like a dumb question but did you rinse the container? if you didn't it might be doing it.

 

Harry's Pico

[Derekcaudill]

what exactly are you doing? What type of salt? how are you determining how much to put in? and maybe a pic would help.

 

I am simply mixing my saltwater in a rubbermaid container now. It is reef crystals by instant ocean and for five gallons of water I put just under 2 1/2 cups of salt which gets me to right at around 1.022. I know it sounds crazy but could it be a static kinda situation?

[hazmat]

Ok guys so to help me out a little I went a bought a large rubbermaid container to mix my salt and water in. i upgraded my BC29 to the Maxi1200 and took the stock pump and layed it in the Rubbermaid container to do the mixing for me. After about 2 or 3 hours of mixing the water starts to become real milky and creates a white film against the container under the water level. Whats going on with this???

 

This just happened to me too. For some reason your SW precipitated. My situation was because I added too much salt too fast. Water at certain temps can only hold so much salt, CA, ALK before it precipitates out.

 

According to Mr. Fosi....you can use soda water to reconstitute the water and precipitate. I would just start over with new water if it was me.

 

 

This also happened to me once when I changed over to Reef crystals. I mixed it and it precipitated. I stopped using it after that. I use seachem now.

 

Here is the info:

 

There is only a certain amount of calcium carbonate that water can hold at a given temp/pH, and if you mix in too much salt you can cross that line and some of it precipitates out. Even if you subsequently add more water the CaCO3 will not readily dissolve again.

 

If you want you can add a cup or two of plain soda water which will lower the pH enough to dissolve the cloudy stuff (CaCO3) and then let it sit with a pump or air stone for a day or two and the pH should stabilize back to 8.3 or whatever (thank you Fosi for this idea)

[Derekcaudill]

This just happened to me too. For some reason your SW precipitated. My situation was because I added too much salt too fast. Water at certain temps can only hold so much salt, CA, ALK before it precipitates out.

 

According to Mr. Fosi....you can use soda water to reconstitute the water and precipitate. I would just start over with new water if it was me.

 

 

This also happened to me once when I changed over to Reef crystals. I mixed it and it precipitated. I stopped using it after that. I use seachem now.

 

Here is the info:

 

There is only a certain amount of calcium carbonate that water can hold at a given temp/pH, and if you mix in too much salt you can cross that line and some of it precipitates out. Even if you subsequently add more water the CaCO3 will not readily dissolve again.

 

If you want you can add a cup or two of plain soda water which will lower the pH enough to dissolve the cloudy stuff (CaCO3) and then let it sit with a pump or air stone for a day or two and the pH should stabilize back to 8.3 or whatever (thank you Fosi for this idea)

 

Ok i read about that once in here but never really thought that was what I am experiencing. Guess i will just tart over. Also just ran out of the Reef Crystals, what do you guys reccomend?

[lakshwadeep]

Reef crystals is fine, especially for a new tank.