How to Mix Synthetic Seawater in Under Five Minutes

[AJ_77]

Originally Posted by teevee

... throw the salt in the next morning with a Minijet, put it into the tank an hour later...

A Mini-jet?? That's a drink mixer, if I remember the quote correctly...

I recommend an MJ1200 in a 5-7 gal bucket. Almost as good as a paint mixer.

[Beverly]

[quote="mark"]but the letting the water sit for a week has be more for getting rid of chlorine or chloramine for they support using tap water and not using dechlorinators etc.[quote]

Chlorine will dissapate from tapwater if left long enough. Chloramine, which is a compound made of chlorine and ammonia, will not. Chloramine treated water defintitely needs a dechlorinator designed for use with its particular chemistry, such as Amquel and Prime.

Chloramine has replaced chlorine in many municipal water supplies because chlorine does dissapate making it a less useful guard against the pathogens found in untreated drinking water. Boiling water for 30 minutes, or so, also gets rid of these pathogens. Walkerton is a good example of pathogens not being killed.

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by reef_raf

Bev, I'm sure if you heavily "whipped" your water for 5 minutes with a drill mixer, you'd see the pH go up. I have done this test on a smaller scale, and 3 minutes sees a significant gas exchange, resulting in a pH shift.

Brad, if you have tested short term rapid mixing pH change compared to longer term (overnight, for example) mixing pH change and the results are pretty much the same, I'd say stick with your current practice.

But others out there are quite possibly assuming rapid pH changes are happening during their own particular mixing process when it is not. Testing pH change in short term mixing vs. longer term mixing is the only way to know for sure what pH is actually doing.

I'm not really into this rapid mixing thing. Too much work. Easier to put in the powerhead and heater and leave this equipment work while I have a good night's sleep

As a point of interest, here is Epcor's On-Line Tour of a Water Treatment Plant. It details all the processes untreated water (in our case, water from the N. Saskatchewan River) goes through to get to our taps:

http://www.epcor.ca/EPCOR+Companies/...-Line+Tour.htm