Mixing Salt

ryant

ryant

Member
This weekend before my tank was ready to setup, I went ahead and got some salt mixing. The biggest container i mix it in is like 45 gallons. I dropped two 50 gallon size Instant Ocean bags in it and put two powerheads to help dissolve. I set the tank up the next day and transferred the salt water over and fill it on up with water. Now i know it takes a little bit to dissolve salt but should it still be milky white this long after mixing? Did i mess up and have it too concentrated for too long? 100 gallons worth of salt in a 45 gallon container.
 
pezenfuego

pezenfuego

Active Member
Originally Posted by RyanT
http:///forum/post/3228910
This weekend before my tank was ready to setup, I went ahead and got some salt mixing. The biggest container i mix it in is like 45 gallons. I dropped two 50 gallon size Instant Ocean bags in it and put two powerheads to help dissolve. I set the tank up the next day and transferred the salt water over and fill it on up with water. Now i know it takes a little bit to dissolve salt but should it still be milky white this long after mixing? Did i mess up and have it too concentrated for too long? 100 gallons worth of salt in a 45 gallon container.
That is a lot of salt. Since you did nothing to heat the water and form a supersaturated solution, the mixture you initially made was fully saturated but had a lot of undissolved salt. So it is basically mixing for the first time. Do you have powerheads going now? I don't see a problem in your mixing method to tell you the truth. Is there sand in the tank? I would think that it would clear up in a day or two.
 
ryant

ryant

Member
I had a koralia 4 and a k2 in the 45 gallon mixing it. I transferred the mix to the tank 165 and diluted it until i got it to the right salinity. It looks like it has kinda cleared just a bit now that i added a canister to the tank to try and help. I guess all i can do is wait. Yes i do have new sand i added and that might have added to the cloudiness, but i have 2 other tanks that ive added sand to and it didnt take that long to clear.
 
pezenfuego

pezenfuego

Active Member
Originally Posted by RyanT
http:///forum/post/3228921
I had a koralia 4 and a k2 in the 45 gallon mixing it. I transferred the mix to the tank 165 and diluted it until i got it to the right salinity. It looks like it has kinda cleared just a bit now that i added a canister to the tank to try and help. I guess all i can do is wait. Yes i do have new sand i added and that might have added to the cloudiness, but i have 2 other tanks that ive added sand to and it didnt take that long to clear.

In my experience different sand causes different rates of cloudiness. I've used one type of argonite sand that caused virtually no cloudiness and I've use another of the same grade that caused a lot of cloudiness. I see no reason why it wouldn't clear up.
 
G

gwhunter

Guest
Originally Posted by BTLDreef
http:///forum/post/3228918
Yup, you probably did.
What power heads do you have?
Am I missing something here? You added 100 gallons of IO to 45 gallons of fresh water? Of couse your going to be over double the concentration. You'll need to add more fresh water. I always add my ro/di water then powerhead then heater then salt. I add a few scoops then check on it in a few hours. Then I just keep adding slowly until you get in the ball park.
Matt
 
pezenfuego

pezenfuego

Active Member
Originally Posted by GWhunter
http:///forum/post/3228930
Am I missing something here? You added 100 gallons of IO to 45 gallons of fresh water? Of couse your going to be over double the concentration. You'll need to add more fresh water. I always add my ro/di water then powerhead then heater then salt. I add a few scoops then check on it in a few hours. Then I just keep adding slowly until you get in the ball park.
Matt
You did miss something. He mixed the 100 gallons worth of salt with 45 gallons. Then he added that to his tank ALONG WITH 55 gallons of fresh water. If IO doesn't lie, then his SG should be in the right range.
 
geridoc

geridoc

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by PEZenfuego
http:///forum/post/3228935
You did miss something. He mixed the 100 gallons worth of salt with 45 gallons. Then he added that to his tank ALONG WITH 55 gallons of fresh water. If IO doesn't lie, then his SG should be in the right range.
His SG might be OK, but I'm concerned about forming insoluble calcium salts. There isn't enough calcium in the mix so that precipitation of much of it won't affect SG, but the calcium concentration would be far too low. It might be worth checking the calcium level of the water.
 
G

gwhunter

Guest
PEZenfuego;3228935 said:
You did miss something. He mixed the 100 gallons worth of salt with 45 gallons. Then he added that to his tank ALONG WITH 55 gallons of fresh water. If IO doesn't lie, then his SG should be in the right range.[/QUOTa
Where does it say he added 55 gallons of fresh. If that is the case he's sg should be ok. If he's filling a 165g he's still gonna need more salt. If he added 100g mix of IO to 45g of water he's going to be way too high on his SG.
As other's have said the salt dissolves better at warmer temps.
Matt
Click to expand...
 
pezenfuego

pezenfuego

Active Member
Originally Posted by GeriDoc
http:///forum/post/3228944
His SG might be OK, but I'm concerned about forming insoluble calcium salts. There isn't enough calcium in the mix so that precipitation of much of it won't affect SG, but the calcium concentration would be far too low. It might be worth checking the calcium level of the water.
I think I know what you're saying.
So adding that much salt to that amount of water would cause the calcium level to be so high that it precipitates? Kind of like what happens when you add too much calcium supplement? So by doing this, some of the calcium would precipitate out and then by diluting it, you would end up with an insignificant amount of calcium? This doesn't explain why it is taking so long for it to dissolve but it does explain why doing this wouldn't be the best idea.
That is if I am understanding you correctly.
 
pezenfuego

pezenfuego

Active Member

Originally Posted by RyanT
http:///forum/post/3228921
I had a koralia 4 and a k2 in the 45 gallon mixing it. I transferred the mix to the tank 165 and diluted it until i got it to the right salinity. It looks like it has kinda cleared just a bit now that i added a canister to the tank to try and help. I guess all i can do is wait. Yes i do have new sand i added and that might have added to the cloudiness, but i have 2 other tanks that ive added sand to and it didnt take that long to clear.
It never said he added 55 gallons of water but I made the assumption based on the fact that 55 plus 45 equals 100 and 100 gallons was the amount of solvent required for the solute.
Sorry for the double post.
 
ryant

ryant

Member
Ive got water thats coming out of my 55 gallon thats goin to top off the tank. I think it might clear.
 
fibinotchi

fibinotchi

Member
how much salt can you add before the water can no longer dissolve it? where you reach 100 percent saturation? what if you added 10 bags of salt to 45 gallons would it still all dissolve? I have no idea, but am curious.
 
pezenfuego

pezenfuego

Active Member

Originally Posted by Fibinotchi
http:///forum/post/3229064
how much salt can you add before the water can no longer dissolve it? where you reach 100 percent saturation? what if you added 10 bags of salt to 45 gallons would it still all dissolve? I have no idea, but am curious.
There are too many factors for me to answer this accurately. I can give an approximation to help you. As we all know salt mix is not pure Sodium chloride.
38 grams of NaCl is saturated in 100 grams of H2O at room temperature at 1 atm.
Each 50 gallon bag of IO weighs approximately 15 pounds according to the website.
Two bags (30 pounds) is about 13,608 grams and according to the ratio I just gave (which is inaccurate due to the fact that IO isn't pure NaCl) we can determine that two bags of solute needs about 35,810 grams of H2O or about 79 pounds. Now 8.35 pounds of water is the weight of one gallon of water. So in order for the two bags of salt to be completely saturated, they would have to mixed in 9.5 gallons of water.
That is lower than 45 gallons...obviously. All that means is that when completely mixed, salt won't settle to the bottom. The only problem with this is that the amount of calcium that can be dissolved isn't taken into consideration by any of this.
But I never answered your question lol.
10 bags is about 150 pounds or 68039 grams. In order for that to dissolve we would need 179050 grams of water. That's about 395 pounds. 395 pounds divided by 8.35 pounds is about 47 gallons. You were close but the answer is no. 10 bags of salt (IO) would not dissolve completely into 45 gallons of water.
Or...
We know that it takes 2 bags to saturate 9.5 gallons of water.
Multiply both factors by 5 and we get ten bags to 47.5 gallons of water.
That way was easier but a little less accurate.
Again, due to the lack of a sea salt solution ratio, these answers are not 100% accurate, just ballpark figures. If someone can supply me with a ratio for sea salt I could get much closer to a completely accurate answer and would be a very happy camper. Even still I'm sure that the amount of IO and other synthetic salts required for saturation varies from that of the ocean water.
 
pezenfuego

pezenfuego

Active Member
Originally Posted by RyanT
http:///forum/post/3229251
this morning its cleared up considerably. maybe i wont have to redo it .
Just make sure to test your calcium. It would be okay to buffer your tank if it needs it. Since you won't be adding saltwater in this way again, it isn't that big of an issue even if your decision to mix the water in this manner caused your calcium to be terribly low.
 
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