Bleach and salt mix?

KoleTang · Feb 27, 2015

I'm bleaching some rock in an unheated garage (1:10 bleach to water). To prevent freezing I was thinking about adding some old IO salt I had laying around.

It might be a silly question, but I'm no chemist. Is there anything in the salt mix that could react with the bleach in a nasty way?

Reefing Madness · Feb 27, 2015

No, you can do it. But why not just add a powerhead to keep the water moving, or a lil heater?

redfishbluefish · Feb 27, 2015

I see your in MN....where I've got to believe it's pretty cold. I'm not sure salt is going to help much. If you made it up at tank concentration (3.5%), that freezes at about 28 degrees. Now you could add more....at 10% salt, you're down to about 20F, and at 20% salt, at about 2 F. If I assume your doing this in a relatively small volume, these numbers aren't dead accutate because as it begins to freeze, it's only primarily the water freezing, making the remaining unfrozen more concentrated, thereby further lowering the freezing temperature.

If it were me, I'd throw a heater in the container with a powerhead/pump for circulation while I let the rock cook in bleach.

KoleTang · Feb 28, 2015

Thanks guys. Its about 2Â° outside up here (warmer in the garage). I left the tub out with the rocks and freshwater last night to see how it would go. The next morning I had 3/4" of ice even with the circ pump.

I have a good amount of old, moisture exposed salt mix that can I use, so I'll add some of that and keep an eye on how everything is going and judge if I need a heater.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 28, 2015

I would not add salt mix to it. It will potentially react with stuff in the salt mix, making new chemicals such as bromate, and it will take a ton of it to drop the freezing point very much.