Omega Marine Salt Brown Sediment

[Reef Aquatics]

I used this Salt back in 2018 and now tried it again just recently. Every bag Ive purchased has

this same issue.  Brown Sediment after 24 hours of mixing. I use 12 stage RO/DI water and the

pump I use has only ever been used for salt mixing and is rinsed after every use. I called the

company and they were nice enough, but seemed to be clueless about this issue.  The photos

are from the last batch I mixed and it was the worst one yet.  The 1st pic is the before and then

the others are after. As you can see after 24 hours brown sediment is all over and floating in the

water. 

 

Needless to say I poured it out, cleaned everything and mixed up a batch of Instant Ocean

and the water after 24 hours is completely clear. 

 

I also heard of people having this same issue with Reef Crystals. In the past 15 years  Ive also used

Tropic Marin and  Instant Ocean and never had this issue. Only with Omega Marine Salt. 

Wondering if anyone else has experienced this?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[mcarroll]

Reportedly it's clay, used as a natural chelator for trace elements.  Definitely not a problem with the salt.

 

Judging from your mixing setup, you may have over-mixed/over-heated, which seems to make these deposits worse.....possible due to the added carbonate precipitation related to the mixing and heat.   In a pair of setups where the water was actively heated and pumped for constant mixing, I'd see Tropic Marin precipitate black and Instant Ocean precipitate brown.

 

If you want to avoid it happening in the future, even if just to avoid the messy bucket, try just mixing until the water is clear and no further:  If that takes a lot more than 5 minutes to mix a bucket of salt, that too long and is probably part of the issue. 

 

Use your hand or a mixing paddle to do the mixing instead of a pump. 

 

No heating (ideally not even from a pump) once the salt is in there.

 

👍

[Reef Aquatics]

That's interesting, I didn't know it was clay.  I'm wondering why the people at Omega didn't know

this? I actually spoke to someone there that worked in product development of their Reef salts and

she said there was nothing in their Salts that would make Brown Sediment.

 

Ive mixed salt the same way for the past 15 years and Omega is the only salt mix that Ive used that

leaves this brown sediment.  Ive never seen this happen with Tropic Marin or Instant Ocean. I don't heat

the water. I do realize there is some heat from the pump though. I don't think I over mixed. Its a 5 gal bucket

and I put a half cup per gallon as per standard.  I keep my Salinity at 1.023

 

Like I said,  right after this last Omega batch, I cleaned everything and mixed a batch of Instant Ocean exactly

the same way and after 24 hours the bucket and the water was completely clear. No brown sediment with Instant

Ocean.

 

 

[mcarroll]

If you take the pump apart, I wonder if the impeller well has the same residue as your mixing bucket?

 

I wonder if Omega is making this salt themselves or if they're selling re-branded salt from someone else?  I have no idea, but if they aren't making it they may not know much about what it's composed of.

 

I certainly don't know for sure about the clay, but it made sense to me when I heard it.  Trace elements definitely need to be part of some sort of compound in the mix though....some folks speculated (back in the day) that EDTA would be used.  Can't remember what the reasons against it were.

 

My experience at work with the TM and IO salt seemed to match the clay story so I had no reason to doubt either tho.   

 

The pump is also a heater, FYI.  It's a heater of equivalent wattage to the label on the pump....so a small one, but one nonetheless, with the effect concentrated in the impeller well, around the impeller.

 

On the flip side, at home I mix by hand - no powered device at all.  And I use the mixed water as soon as it's clear (about 5 minutes) and I've *never* seen this happen, even when using the same salts from the same store I mentioned above.

 

Could be that Omega salt is just "more like this" than the others you've used in the past. Could be there was some other coincidental difference with the RO water or something else that exacerbated the effect this time as well.

 

If you only use the pump (is that an Eco+ 264gph?) for the 5-10 minutes it should take to mix the salt and then use it right away, that might be all you need to do to avoid the sediment.

 

And if it takes longer than that to mix, use a different method....such as mixing by hand or with a paddle.  Mixing with a pump seems logical, but IME is not a great way to mix.  I did about 140+ comparisons of 5-6 different mixing methods one year when I was doing daily 5% water changes.  Every method I saw online and tried was horrible compared to mixing literally by hand or with a mixing paddle.  Your rig is similar to the not-good ones, but good in that your pump is at the top.  If you could fix it in place so that it's pointed at the bottom of the bucket rather than the side, it would help your setup a lot.

[Reef Aquatics]

From talking to them... I think Omega makes the salt themselves.

 

The water I start with is 12 stage RO/DI

As far the pump goes. The 290 gph pump has only ever been used for salt mixing. After every use

I take it apart and rinse it with cold water.  I do pull the impeller out and check it. So before the last use it was

completely clean..But after that last mixing of Omega, I took it apart and it had the brown stuff all over the impeller

and in the impeller shaft. So I completely cleaned it and then did the batch of instant Ocean and the results were

totally clear bucket and clean looking salt water after mixing.

 

Even with a pump, I did notice the Omega takes way longer to mix then Tropic Marin and Instant Ocean.

Actually with Omega after 5-10 mins with a pump, the water is still milky and cloudy.. This has been consistent

from bag to bag of Omega Marine. 

 

You are totally right on TM and IO, they usually clear after 10mins.

 

 

 

[mcarroll]

Maybe for one experiment try ditching the pump and mixing with your hand. 

 

Getting everything into solution faster (which your hand will do with certainty) should minimize precipitation of anything.

 

If the water clears faster AND you have no bucket residue, then you have a solution if you wanna keep using Omega without this happening. 

 

But get a mixing paddle so you don't have to get your arm wet just to make saltwater.  😆

https://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=22936

 

Alternately, just don't worry about it.  😉

 

At the store mentioned there was never an apparent issue related to it happening on either TM or IO.  Whatever it is seems to be inert.  We just cleaned out the mixing vats every so often.  They were huge so it was a pain, but cleaning out a bucket could happen with every use.  Still a pain, but a very small one.

 

(The TM residue looked a lot yuckier, but I assume that was just my perception of the black color.  Regardless we never saw a side effect from it.  Both salts were used extensively in-store and sold to the public....all without apparent issues.)