Kent users: alk/precipitation in new SW?

[whaase]

I don't have that much experience mixing salt up, but I did mix it with ice cold water, and warm water. Both mixed up fine... But then again, I didn't allow it to sit for more than a couple hours at most before adding it to the tank.

Walter

[kari]

Tony,
Just to add to your thoughts, I have been using Kent from about the same time as you have but have not seen similar things happening. The difference in my mixing habits are that I don't bother heating the water prior or after adding salt. I do use RO (no DI.) I have just mixed the water with a MJ power head and added it to the tank after 12hrs at a rather slow rate (eg 6 litres/hr.) Haven't noticed any percipitation within the mixing bucket.

Kari

[christyf5]

Hey,

I checked out my salt and the Ca was 460ppm and alk was at 4.0meq/L. Seems normal to me. I just have a bit of calcium precipitate left on my heater (small patch) and not much left in the bucket. Can't check the pH as the probe is wonky. The salt mixes up fine, just leaves abit of a residue in the bucket.

Christy

[Delphinus]

Here's a picture of the mixing bucket. I had scrubbed the thing (plus my powerhead and heater) spotless after my last water change.



I didn't test the Ca or Alk or even pH tonight... I'll try tomorrow (I'm too bagged to do it right now). It probably makes sense to test it on a fresh batch anyways because I presume the Ca and Alk will be less, after all this has been precip'd out. More interested to see what it mixes up at.

Incidentally the last water change (the one before this one) I didn't do the drill mix thing, I just let the powerhead do the mixing. Same thing. Course the heater is still there.

Oh right, I should go find a thermometer to toss in there and see what the temp is. I'll post back tomorrow maybe with that info.

[christyf5]

Wow thats way more precipitation than I've seen.

[Delphinus]

I was thinking it's pretty nasty... I should try mixing it without the heater to see what difference it makes but I like having my SW at tank temp that way it's ready to go in on a moment's notice and if I have to swap out a lot it's not like there's any kind of temp differential. I can swap out 30g out of my 75g and not even have my more senstive acros slime up (the ones that'll slime if I so much as have my hand in the tank too close to them for too long).

I suppose if it's mixing up with an alk >4.0 then it's probably better to let it precip out rather than risk having it precip in the tank (or worse, put things through an alk shock).

So far other than the messy mixing equipment the water hasn't given me any issues once it's in the tanks. Luckily I like to let the water age/stabilize before use, if I was dropping in 40% of unstable water into a tank I'd hate to become another one of those "IO statistics from last year" (although it's neither "last year" nor "IO" ... well .. I know Kent is IO but with "more stuff" .... hmmm, maybe I AM an IO statistic).

[BCOrchidGuy]

Tony, the sad thing is I've used many other salts, well not many but at least 4 others and I can tell you something, Kent/IO have always been consistant for me from one batch to the other where the others have all ways been all over the place.
A few years ago I tried one of those salts by the guy who sponsored that big study that I'm sure you know who I'm talking about. I tried his salt with the little bottle. The first bag I had alot of trouble with my pH, my Ca and my Alk were all over the place from one batch to another. I figured it was my fault with the little bottle. I did some reading and found out what folks did was mix up the salt in a super saline solution and add the bottle and then make sure it's mixed up really good. Then take some of that soup to make up the water for the water change so I did that with my next bag. That bag when mixed for the right SG had a pH of 7.6 and a Ca level of 240ish. So I figured I did something wrong again tried the same thing again, next bag had a pH of over 9 and a Ca level of well over 500. I tried their next brand (the not so premium) same things all over the place. So I tried another manufacturers salt, a name brand, very low Ca levels. Tried one other, got my free T shirt, salt didn't mix well, always lots of stuff left over in the mixing tank.
Then I tried Kent, mixed up 10 gallons and pH was 8.2ish, Ca was 400ish, Alk was 11dKH. I thought wow, that was easy, couple weeks later mixed up 10 more gallons same thing, and again and again and again.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is, in my opinion Kent/IO is the best salt we've got available out here in my opinion, perhaps in controversy to the coughcovetedcough S-15 report. I was lucky I didn't get any of that bad salt last year. But then again, I haven't had any problems with Rio power heads either.

Doug

[Delphinus]

You figure I just have a bad batch then?

The 50g bag of Kent salt I bought during Boxing week did this to me, too.

Maybe my methods of mixing work fine for IO, but not for Kent?

Kent users: please describe to me your SW mixing process. What do you see in my process that you think could be at fault?

[Aquattro]

Tony, when I used Kent, I added salt to water. Nothing more technical than that. Cold water, heated water, didn't matter. You shouldn't need to stand on your head while pouring salt from a green cup into the right side of the receptacle while holding a voodoo doll in your left hand. It's just salt.

[Delphinus]

OK then... What would you do if this was happening to you? Live with it?

If IO and Kent is consistent, that's great and all, but then WTF is going on here??? If it's not the salt, and it's not what I'm doing to it, and it's not the temp ... what's left? The water? what could possibly be wrong with RO water?

I thought maybe there are other things to consider, like, maybe you should add half of the salt, let it mix, then add the rest an hour later or something. I thought maybe the issue could be that I'm taking it from 1.000 to 1.025 within 3-5 minutes.

But if not ....