Red Sea Coral Pro Salt

[jvalentine83]

Last night I began to start up my Red Sea Reefer 350. I filled it up with RO/DI water (BRS 7 Stage RO/DI), ensured no leaks and that it ran fine. No sand or rocks in the tank yet. 

Put a Maxspect Gyre xf330 pump in and began adding Red Sea Coral Pro salt into the tank and letting the Gyre and my return pump (Sicce Syncra Silent 4.0) do the mixing. Water temp was about 70 at this point. Got the salinity up to 1.026, added a heater set to 78, and made sure to scrape the bottom of the tank to kick up any salt that may have settled and watched it for a few hours, hoping for the water to clear. By the time I went to sleep it was still a bit cloudy but clearing up overall.

However when I woke up this morning it was MUCH cloudier than when I went to sleep. A thin white layer had formed on the Gyre and bottom of the tank (didn't really look like salt deposits though?). Anyone else have this issue? Will it clear up eventually or did I mess something up?

[Timfish]

I was going to say "Over the years I've had this happen with Instant Ocean and with Coralife . . ." but if I understand your post correctly you mixed it up in your display tank, not in a mixing tank?    If you have and you had sand and or rock in your tank it's what I would expect and it should clear up in a day or so depending on the type of sand and rock.  Oooooops! just noticed you said you didn't have any sand or rock in it.   Obviously you've had some precipitation and even if you haven't added bacteria you most certainly already have something going.    Test your alkalinity, ph, calcium and magnesium and go ahead and stir up the precipitation.  The cloudy water will clear up over the next day or so as things stabilize.  I would go ahead and add sand and rock and any bacteria you're going to start with, you need to get your system going whether or not the water is cloudy.

[jvalentine83]

14 minutes ago, Timfish said:

I was going to say "Over the years I've had this happen with Instant Ocean and with Coralife . . ." but if I understand your post correctly you mixed it up in your display tank, not in a mixing tank?    If you have and you had sand and or rock in your tank it's what I would expect and it should clear up in a day or so depending on the type of sand and rock.

You are correct, I mixed it up in the display tank, not in a mixing tank. But I have no sand or rock in the display tank.

The only reason I chose to mix the salt in the display tank was I dont have a container large enough to mix the water for this sized tank, 91 gallons :/

[Timfish]

Sorry, I just edited my post. 

[takoattack]

It’s precipitation.
Red Sea coral pro precipitates very fast in storage, especially at higher temps.
Check the recent BRS video on YouTube about salt mix precipitation.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[+Dogfish]

I use it and have never had that issue with Red Sea Salt. I do use a mixing barrel with a very strong pump.  I have had the issue with RC and IO.

[Sascha D.]

+1 tako.
You'll have much less precip if you aerate the water and heat it to 76-78 before mixing. It also helps a lot if you mix the water over a period of time. I get almost no precip when extending the mix over 2-3 days, adding 1/8th or so at a time.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

[takoattack]

2 minutes ago, Sascha D. said:

I get almost no precip when extending the mix over 2-3 days, adding 1/8th or so at a time.
 

Interesting, I'll give that a try.

I was having so much trouble maintaining stable alkalinity with water changes with black bucket that I switched to blue bucket. Both precipitate fast for me: storing without constant circulation, but at temperature. I also mix at temperature and keep a heater in each of my RODI and salt barrels. 

Some measurements I made:

Black bucket would mix at 10.5 dkh, and in 48 hours would be 9.6dkh, after a week, 8.6dkh, after two weeks 8.5dkh.

Blue bucket mixes 7.6-7.8dkh, after a week it drops to 6.2 dkh.

I like to add saturated limewater until I get a number that will only swing alk within 0.05 dkh (depending on the size of the water change) Its a pain in the butt to have to measure alk 3-4 times per water change. I might try reef crystals next, based on BRS experiments. 

 

I had problems with low nutrients and high alkalinity, so moving down to a target of 8dkh also seems to be an improvement on my system. I have found that most people around here keep their alk around 8dkh, so its less stressful to have similar levels when introducing frags from locals. 

 

 

[eddius-maximus]

8-8.5 dkh really is the way to go. For a while I kept high alkalinity -- around 11.5 to 12. The amount of 2-part it takes to maintain those levels are exponentially higher than what it takes to maintain 8. The bell curve is incredibly steep.