DIY sea salt

[kyawgyi1968]

Hello,
I am very new here. Can anyone advice me how to do DIY sea salt???
I live in out of no where. No lfs sell marine products and accessories. I collect the sea water from sea. It takes 7 hours drive. Everytime when i collect the sea water salinity is only 1.016. So i have to let the water run and evoporate till i get the 1.023. Even when salinity get to the 1.023, Ca is only 250.
If i can make sea salt , it will be very easy to keep marine tank.
All fishes, and corals , i went to sea and collected my self.
For the sea water, i am very difficult to get quality.
If somebody has the formula , please share me.Thanks in advance.
Kyaw

 

[melosu58]

I personally dont think you can. There are over 89 different salts in synthetic marine salts. These 89 different salts make up the different trace elements that are needed in the fish and reef processes. You`ll be much better ordering it and having it delivered. JMO

 

[roka64]

I agree, you might be better off finding a place that will ship to your location. See if you can do a search on the internet. I did a quick google but didn't find much. You may know of a search engine that might work better.
Another suggestion would be find a reef/fish club and ask around there.

 

[jsoong]

I am not a salty ... but would natural sea salt work? Since this is just salt from evaporation of sea water, it should be pretty close to the real stuff when reconstituted. This might be easier to get at in the developing world.

 

[kyawgyi1968]

Thanks for all replies,
There must b a way to doing it. In our country, nothing is ready. Everybody must learn""self"" to survive.
I am trying to find it on internet and reading some web sites now.
Thanks
Kyaw

 

[HooKooDooKu]

Based on your stated location (Yangon, Myanmar), and using Google Earth as a reference, I'm guessing that you head roughly due south to go to the ocean. If so, I think the reason that your salinity isn't as high as expected is because the area seems to be feed by several rivers. So the water you are collecting is something of a mixture of fresh water and sea water.

Now based on jsoong's suggestion, is there a place you know of along the coast where they might be producing salt by simply drying sea water? It looks like such a place may be operating near the coordinates of 16°31'19.72"N 96°34'28.35"E (about 8 miles east of Kala-ywa). If so, you could perhaps just go there and get a huge bucket of dried sea salt and use that to reconstitute sea water at home. It might not be a good as commercially available sea salts, but I would think it would be close enough (at least as good as collecting sea water directly, but this way, one trip bringing home dried sea water would last a lot longer than wet sea water).

 

[roka64]

Wow, that is some great research!

 

[kyawgyi1968]

THat's really great information.
I will try to do that also. Last May, there was a storm 'Nagis" destroyed our area, more than 200,000 people dead. Most of the area is producing natural dried sea salt. All those area are now destroyed , it will take time to rebuilt.
Anyway, i'll try to get it on christmas holiday. I am planning to travel to that area to collect some fish and corals.Roads are very bad, can drive only 10miles/ hour.

I got some formula which i found on internet. I m going to but all today and test. Following is the formula what they give. I'll test and post it.

Sodium chloride 23.477g
Magnesium chloride 4.981g
Sodium sulfate 3.917g
Calcium chloride 1.102g
Potassium chloride 0.664g
Sodium bicarbonate 0.192g
Potassium bromide 0.096g
Boric acid 0.026g
Strontium chloride 0.024g
Sodium fluoride 0.003g
Commercial trace elements


This is the amount of salt normally used for 1 liter of water. Larger amounts would be needed. Multiplying the amounts by 100 or 1000 would make up sufficient salt mixture, and be easier to measure out as well

After testing it, i'll post the result.
Thank for all advice
Kyaw

 

[kyawgyi1968]

ok,
Yesterday, i got everything bought locally. At home i measure for 30 gallon tank and started to run with the power head. I use RO water . After putting in salt , PH was 8.1. This morning ph is 8.3, salinity is 1.022.
I'll run this water for another 2 days. After that i'll test with some fish.
Wish me luck.
Kyaw

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

I'm kind of confused...

You are in a location where you can't buy an aquarium salt mix, but you can buy all those chemicals you listed? Strontium Chloride? Potassium Bromide?

 

[kyawgyi1968]

Dear Nelson,
I think, There are no one keeping marine aquarium, that's why nobody importing salt mix or accessories for marine tank. About mine, i imported from China myself.
For the chemical, it's very easy, i don't know why it so easy. SrCl2 is the most expensive. It cost 8US$ or 25 gm. The rest are very cheap. Even i use the pure imported NaCl2 from Thailand( 10 Us for 25KG).
So when i calculated for 1 KG of salt mix, it cost 1.8 US. Even that is quite expensive for our standard.
Normal workers salary is only 40US/month.
Today, water is crystal clear Ph 8.3, salinity 1.023, Ca 320 ppm.
Kyaw

 

[melosu58]

I'll test and post it.

Please do !!

 

[kyawgyi1968]

Hello again!!
yesterday night, i put a marron clown in to that 30 Gallon tank. He is still ok till this morning. I fed him mix fresh food this morning. He looks healthy and ok. I'll let him stay there. I think fish will b ok with that DIY water. I am not sure about the corals cause they are very sensative. When i get the new corals i'll test.
On comming saturday, i am going to a trip to collect natural sea salt, fish and some corals.
I am going to this location 16'57"40N 94'36"22E. itis 114 miles straight line from My city (Yangon).
I'll take some pictures and post it here after i come back.
Kyaw

 

[HooKooDooKu]

...I am going to this location 16'57"40N 94'36"22E. itis 114 miles straight line from My city (Yangon).
I'll take some pictures and post it here after i come back.
Kyaw

I can only assume you really mean 16°57'40"N 94°36'22"E
(16 degrees 57 minutes 40 seconds North...)

Even still, are you sure that's where you are going... that's a spot 11 miles from the coast somewhere between Kangy and Zibyugwin.

Now 117 miles due west of Yangon on the coast is at 16°46'40"N 94°23'34"E. It's an interesting looking piece of coast line (at least as Google Earth shows it), but again, you'll notice it's near a major river emptying into the sea. I'd suggest going a little farther north, or just a little bit south (just past that peninsula) to get water with salinity close to open ocean water. However, the way it looks like the wave push into the little cove at those coordinates, I'm thinking that cove might be a good place to find sea life.

 

[kyawgyi1968]

Now 117 miles due west of Yangon on the coast is at 16°46'40"N 94°23'34"E. It's an interesting looking piece of coast line (at least as Google Earth shows it), but again, you'll notice it's near a major river emptying into the sea. I'd suggest going a little farther north, or just a little bit south (just past that peninsula) to get water with salinity close to open ocean water. However, the way it looks like the wave push into the little cove at those coordinates, I'm thinking that cove might be a good place to find sea life.

Ok, I just trying to let u know the location from google earth. The river which close to that location is salt water this time. Because rainy season already finished last september. I have already got Fish and corals from that beach. We have to go out to sea by boat to get a reef. And diver go under water with the air pipe(they don't use oxygen tanks) using air compressor. They can stay 3-4 hours under water.
And i am going to get the natural dry sea salt around there. U can check on google earth, Chaung Thar Beach and Hotel Max. There is no internet at that area, so i'll post pics after i come back.
whish me luch
kyaw

 

[kyawgyi1968]

I came back fromtrip yesterday. I couldn't get anything because wind speed is very high so boats couldn't go out to sea. They said , even wind is start to slow, seawater is still dark. It will take 3 days to clear water. So i came back.
About the DIY sea salt, clown fish is still ok. So i am going to change water with DIY water to my 120gallon tank on next water change scedule.

 

[gzeiger]

Now this is dedication!

 

[jlgg]

Kyaw,

I am inspired by your finding a way to make things happen! I am in the Philippines, same South East Asia region. We too have lots of coastline, and I am planning on seeing some beach areas. But we luckily have some fish stores and so I will get there.

I wish you good luck in your search and experiments!

 

[cmor1701d]

If you have access to a boat to get to a reef, can you collect water from the reef? If you go farther out to sea the fresh water runoff will not affect the ocean water as much either.
Another thought is to collect sea water and let it evaporate till you get the correct SG reading. If you have a place to store the water between trips you could doing that.

 

[kyawgyi1968]

Thank for the replies,
Last 3 days ago, i changed water to my tank fish only tank with the DIY sea water. But it is only routine and only 30%. So i change again next month 30%. Clown fish id still ok in the 100% DIY sea water. I have 2 tanks and i am afraid to test with the corals. Coral tanks started to give problems. nearly all die slowly and i can't get new ones.
It started to happen after monthly water change. What i did was, the tank salinity was only 1.018. Before i change water i run the natural sea water in the glass bared button tank. And i top up the evaporated water with the sea water. So the salinity is higher. The reason why i did was , i want to raise the salinity of the tank. Everywhere i read about the coral tank salinity is between 1.020 to 1.023. I changed the water 30 % with that higher salinity water. At that time main tank water salinity is going up to 1.022.
After WC for 3 days problem started. At that morning there was a power failure and my auto 12V dc to 220 AC inverter couldn't work automatically. When i found out , it was like 3 hours. And i run the pumps again. So i thought coral death was because of power failure???
Slowly corals are still dying. At that time i thought about something, The area which i collected corals has some fresh water rivers ( from HooKooDooKu). So i asked one of my friend to bring me the water sample from the place which i collected corals, bottom of the sea. The day before yesterday i got the sample and when i checked the salinity, it is only 1.018. Start from the beginning, when i collect the sea water, it was 1.018. I always try to raise to 1.022. Fishes are ok.
Now nearly all corals are die. So i don't know the cause of death. I just try to share waht i had experiance with the salinity.