A silly newbie question on zeolite

[OrionX]

With regards to Zeolite, Im not sure how this works or what it is(i know it removes ammonia, but could be wrong), As they say on the bottle i purchased "remove zeolite before adding salt" (which might kill it i believe), but then i heard through googling that to recharge zeolite soak it in a saltwater solution. So effectively does this mean(which does not make sense), add your zeolite to the tank and it will remove ammonia, when it get old, just add salt to your tank and it will recharge or kill it?? if it recharges then why can we not keep the salt in with the zeolite and have it recharge everytime it gets killed???


I am really confused hopefully someone more knowledgeable can assist.

 

[mgamer20o0]

salt as in table salt is nacl which is different then salt water from the ocean. i never used it so i am not sure about the other stuff though.

 

[OrionX]

I know from reading around you get iodated salt, table salt that sometimes have additives that make it free running and 100% pure sea salt, not sure of the chemical compositions, but is swimming pool salt not the same as what we use? it may be a cheaper alternative

 

[mgamer20o0]

i dont know whats in swimming pool salt.

 

[DragonFish71]

Zeolite needs to be recharged using aquarium salt and warm water. You don't recharge it in your tank. Just keep the container you get it in and use that. I've used it once then decided that using a ammo-carb mixture in the filter was easier and I don't forget about it like I did with the zeolite. Not saying it's a bad product, it worked very well, but I kept forgetting it needed recharged.

 

[krap101]

I'd imagine it sucks up the ammonia, and when you "recharge it" it releases it back.

 

[mgamer20o0]

aquarium salt is just nacl

 

[OrionX]

Thanx guys, I had a look at the bag of salt in the swimming pool section of the hardware store, It says "Non-Iodated Course Salt 25kg" when i spoke to the owner who called the supplier, they said it's just raw rough salt. There was no breakdown of content label or anything. Is there a way to test it? The guy offered to give me a sample to try. Below are some silly newbie questions, but please bear with me.

This is way cheaper(more than half the price) than my LFS prices for what they sell as aquarium salt, in a clear unmarked pastic bag packaging.

@mgamer20o0: Thanx for the table, from that I presume that salt water is similar in composition(Sodium & Cloride vary in small fractions), but saturation levels are different in different parts of the ocean, given that, i think that the dead sea is a hecticly concentrated sample.

So therefore pure Salt is just pure NaCL(Soduim Cloride) in chemical composition, unless it has additives in it, like being iodated, or free a running agent. Which could be bad for fish. If I saturate a solution of the swimming pool salt and stick a piece of string in the container it should crystalise and grow? Would this not remove impurities?


@Dragonfish71: Fair enough, I would agree that if you try to recharge Zeolite in your tank it will release all the ammonia again, so Therefore can we say that its true that at colder temperatures(25 deg C) it absorbs ammonia until saturated, then soaked in warm water out of the tank for recharging(release the ammonia). Does this make it a controlable substance via Temperature?

Is there a limit to the amount of Zeolite one can add to a tank? ie overdosing? I know someone metioned on a forum i read somewhere, they split their zeolite, so that if one is recharging the other is working in the tank. Can it be harmful to just keep zeolite in the tank to remove access amonia that the filter might miss?

Is an ammo-carb mixture simply carbon and zeolite mixed together? if so then how do you separate them for the recharge.

I am sorry everyone for the hectic questions, Im just curios to figure out the science behind Zeolite, I am quite new to it