Mixing salt, Hot or Cold?

[Marc118]

When you all mix your salt do you use hot or cold water? Ive found it to be quite difficult to get everything to disolve when using cold water. Even when having it mixed with a power head for a day or two there are still salt particle floating.

 

[2revup]

what i do is use cold however, i stirr the water viguriously (spelling) for about 5 mins but this stage all the ph buffers and salt have fully disolved.

 

[Hara]

I would be changing salt mixes. That is one of the reasons I use oceanic..mixes almost instantly.

 

[Marc118]

Thanks, Ill give it a try. Do you dose anything with oceanic?

 

[Hara]

I dont dose anything, my ph stays stable at 8.0

 

[roka64]

I pre mix my water for at least 24 hours. I use a PH and heater. !st I try to get the temp around the same as my tank. Then I mix the salt, check the salinity and add more salt or water as needed. If you use a PH while premixing, the pH should stabalize, or at least be close. I use instant ocean for my salt. The reason I warm up the water is so the salt dissolves more quickly and I can get a good salinity reading, before I go to bed. Different people use different salt, my LFS has IO (instant ocean), so ,that's just my supply and demand, but I haven't had any problems. IO dissolves pretty well, but I have to stir it if I put too much in at a time. I don't does either. I did at first because I couldn't get the pH up, but that was beacuse I wasn't using a PH at that time.

 

[2revup]

yup i use instant ocean also.
i have not had an issue with it yet.

 

[stuffer]

I dont dose anything, my ph stays stable at 8.0

isn't 8.0 a little low? I know if everything looks good and is stable then don't mess with it but from what I read here and there, 8.3 is the norm to shoot for. the reason I bring it up is, my 55 is stable at 8.0 and not much will change that. not different salt, water type, buffers. I have tried them all. 8.0 is all I get out of it.

 

[roka64]

Mine stayed at 7.8 until i removed the lid and added an over the tank light and adjusted my PH for a little more water movement. Now it stays at 8.3. I have read, as long as it stays stable and within an acceptable range, you should be good.

 

[Devilishturtles]

8.0 is a perfect pH. Mine has always stayed steady at 8.0 using IO salt. I mix it in heated water, the same as my tank water. I let it sit overnight with a powerhead running.

 

[melosu58]

I use oceanic also. I mix mine in room temp and let it sit two days.
8.0 is a good PH

 

[zuzecawi]

There's two reallly good reasons to never use hot water while mixing your salt... Copper and Lead. In older houses, the hot water pipes often contain lead. And all hot water heaters have copper cores and copper plumbing. Copper being very inimical to your fish, of course. And no, an RO/DI is NOT enough to get rid of copper. It's much safer to use cold water and throw a heater into your mixing bucket/can/whatever to bring it up to temp than it is to use hot water. I have a garbage can I fill with freshwater from my RO/DI during the week, with a heater on in it all the time, and I add my salt about 36 hours before I do a water change so it has time to mix and stabilize. I use a Rio junk-pump 2100 in the can to turn the water over, and have no issues with cloudiness or undissolved solids. And I use a local brand salt, Pacific blah blah (Coast I think?) with great results, far superior to Oceanic which gave me serious ph problems and a weeeird outbreak of diatom-like stuff.

 

[roka64]

hot water heaters have copper cores and copper plumbing

this might be why I am having problems w/my shrimp and hermit crab dying. With the exception of the hermit, the two shrimp dies soon after my PWC....But it hasn't hurt my urchins....hmmmm, any thoughts on that...Sorry if this is hijacking the thread, but if, that is true, then I may have found the culprit.....