Salt Mix Problems/confusion

[NanoDrummer09]

Ive started mixing my 40gal breeder but what i did was add the salt i needed, or at least what i thought would be about 35gal worth and them had my RODI dripping into it,  Ive got about 30-35 gal full with three power heads but its still cloudy after 3 days of mixing.  Ive measured it and its at 1.019 right now and i don't want to add salt due to the obvious salt that hasn't disolved yet. I got all the powerbeads toward the bottom to keep the salt from settling but just curious if its a waiting game or what.  Any experience or advice would help.  

 

Ive set up about 4 tanks but never tried to just mix this quantity at once.  So i wouldn't consider myself a noob just stuck.  Thanks! 

[Higher Thinking]

You're not supposed to add water to your salt, but rather add salt to your water. It may seem like the exact same thing, but it's totally different. When you just start adding water to a pile of salt, the parameters are so concentrated, that you end up with the salt water precipitating. So then you can never really get it to dissolve.

 

How are you measuring salinity?

[Blackice]

Yep what Andrew said you can't mix water to salt it will never Dissolve correctly or become clear your need to empty the tank and let it fill with water first then add the salt. It sucks but noob mistakes happen to us all.

[Guest Bevo5]

That's interesting...

[NanoDrummer09]

Haha well awesome! I shall start over, thanks for the help! Now looking back I've always filled the tank before salt, I guess I just got excited...

[NanoDrummer09]

You're not supposed to add water to your salt, but rather add salt to your water. It may seem like the exact same thing, but it's totally different. When you just start adding water to a pile of salt, the parameters are so concentrated, that you end up with the salt water precipitating. So then you can never really get it to dissolve.

 

How are you measuring salinity?

I'm using a refractometer

[cerk1985]

100% agree with what they said. Ive done the same thing and I don't think it ever cleared up. Lol

[NanoDrummer09]

Good thing I bought a 50lbs bag of it haha

[sroberts]

I typically add a little salt at a time in a forty gallon container. It ends up being about two cups

every 10 minutes or so. It dissolves very quickly and when I have the almost the correct amount in a

begin testing as I go to make sure I don't add too much. Good luck.

[Emerald525]

I typically add a little salt at a time in a forty gallon container. It ends up being about two cups

every 10 minutes or so. It dissolves very quickly and when I have the almost the correct amount in a

begin testing as I go to make sure I don't add too much. Good luck.

That's a good tip right there! I learned to do that the hard way and ended up having to add more to water. It's easier to add more then to take back.

[markvo]

When you add water to the salt mix, the alkalinity and calcium in the resulting water are in such high concentration that they combine together and precipitate out as calcium carbonate. There are probably other combinations of ions that will also combine in such a high concentration. We want the corals to do the combining to form their skeleton.