White specks while mixing reef crystals

[Ronin859]

I'm was doing my weekly water change on my 15g and while I was mixing my rodi and reef crystals I noticed that there are all kinds of white specks in the water. This is my 4th water change and I have not ran into this before. The bucket was clean before I began to mix and I'm at a loss to how this could have happened. I store my salt mix in its bag in a sealed box.

 

Has anyone ran into this before? Could my salt have gone bad?

 

It's has done it twice now. I'm wondering if the calcium or what not has separated and is taking longer to mix? I'm going to leave it for a while and check back.

[FISHnChix]

Try dropping in the salt slower and have a lot of flow as you do so. sometimes the ca can preceptiate out... just and idea .. good luck

[A.m.P]

Salt will pull water from the air actively, I recommend double-bagging it and, if possible, divvying it out into single waterchange portions. Reef Crystals are also known for getting chunky pretty fast on people unfortunately, it isn't really harmful 99% of the time but will require longer to mix, you can always try heating your water up and then letting it come back down to room temperature too.

[Ronin859]

The mix was a little chunky now that you mention it.

 

I tossed the rest of the salt so I’ll be buying some more tomorrow. I noticed the Red Sea mix comes in its own bucket so I’m thinking about getting that in hopes it won’t get chunky like the Reef Crystals.

[A.m.P]

If you have allot leftover it will eventually get chunky, that's the nature of a dessicant exposed to humidity sadly, it absorbs water.

[Ronin859]

Gotcha.

 

I’ll grab an extra box of ziplocs and portion the stuff out while making sure to not leave any air in there.

 

How long have you stored salt for using this method? My reef crystals lasted a month how I was storing it.

[A.m.P]

I think people in general have allot more luck with buckets than the boxes, and you can usually still get it to mix with more time. Plenty use a powerhead in a bucket and just let it mix overnight for instance, i've had double-bagged and portioned waterchange reef crystals sitting in my closet for about 8 months so far. Fingers crossed but I also keep the relative humidity low in the house lol.

[mcarroll]

You have to keep all drops of water and humidity out of your salt as it is hygroscopic - it will even attract water from the air.  (If you take too long to use it up then no amount of protection will be enough....so don't buy more salt than you can reasonably use.)

 

If it gets moist, then you'll get some combining of the salt ingredients. 

 

Unless it gets VERY wet, this usually only has a noticeable impact on alkalinity or no noticeable effect at all.