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Cotton string directed salt creep / evaporation mitigation


Ohmegg

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I stumbled upon something accidentally that may be interesting to try for others. My bag of carbon I have in my overflow of my 20 gallon had a long cotton (I think, could be nylon or mix) string that I let hang out the back of the tank. I have not done a water change in four weeks but my water level has dropped abut 2 cm from evaporation (I have an acrylic lid on the reef tank). I kept testing my salinity and it's been stable and even dropped from 1.025 to 1.024. Interestingly I have no salt creep on the edge of my tank or on the lid. I do have an accumulation of salt that formed on the string of my carbon bag and it dropped about 1x1 cm pile of salt on the stand behind the tank. I thought this may be useful information for some as it has prevented salinity increase as water evaporation occurred during hot months of summer.  String of different materials and thickness may be able to direct salt creep into a bowl or cup and may prevent salt accumulation on filters, wires and lids that could fall into the tank and burn corals. More experimentation needed. 

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It's an interesting thought, but I doubt it would have just been removing salt. It's probably been siphoning/wicking water- hence the salinity decrease. The water evaporates as it's siphoned out, but the salt remains. I had the same thing happen on a heater cable. 

 

The best way to prevent salinity increase from water evaporation is to top the tank off regularly, or get an ATO. 

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46 minutes ago, Tired said:

It's an interesting thought, but I doubt it would have just been removing salt. It's probably been siphoning/wicking water- hence the salinity decrease. The water evaporates as it's siphoned out, but the salt remains. I had the same thing happen on a heater cable. 

 

The best way to prevent salinity increase from water evaporation is to top the tank off regularly, or get an ATO. 

Yes. The string is definitely wicking water as it is always moist to the touch. The interesting, and possibly useful thing, that was observed is that I have no salt creep on my lid, equipment, or edges of my tank. So for someone experiencing salt creep in unwanted areas that could fall off and harm an organism, using a cotton string to wick that water/salt to a receptacle could mitigate the creep in an unwanted area. This is totally anecdotal observation. I have not tested this in a controlled way.   The string is approx 3 mm thick and I'm pretty sure it's cotton. 

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You should definitely test that. I'm not sure what it would be doing to prevent salt creep, but if it actually does so, that would be useful. As long as it doesn't turn into a siphon that drips water, since that adds up and would drain too much from the tank.

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A Ground Probe Wired to an independent ground will greatly slow Salt Creep. It’s aided by the Electrolysis.  An independent ground would be a Hole drilled in your slab, and a Ground Rod Pounded into the Soil below. Just be sure you know where your plumbing pipes are!! I don’t recommend grounding to your home’s electrical system, unless you’ve had an Electrician check your grounds. Even then there can be a lot of noise on these grounds. 

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