BRS magnesium sulfate not dissolving

peacepleasure · Feb 19, 2016

I bought some BRS magnesium sulfate and mag chloride, I followed the direction for making the mixture however the sulfate isn't dissolving completely. I tried soaking the jug in hot water hoping heating it up would help....nope. Is this normal? Should I just shake the crap out of it for a few minutes?

abinder · Feb 19, 2016

How many cups of each did you use?

How much RO did you use?

Allen

peacepleasure · Feb 19, 2016

5 cups of chloride and 3 cups of sulfate put into a 1 gallon jug. I filled it half full of rodi, shook it a good bit then filled it the rest of the way up.

Lynn52 · Feb 19, 2016

I buy the premixed but it is pretty close to saturation when it finally goes into solution. It usually takes at least a day. I let is sit at room temp and shake it throughout the day. Eventually it does goes in. It is one of the times I wish I could borrow a stir plate from work it would be so much easier.

rickybrooks05 · Feb 19, 2016

I had this same issue... Was the rodi cold? I mixed mine in the garage and rodi was at room temp.... It did not mix well and I had to warm up the water to finish it.

peacepleasure · Feb 19, 2016

You think I could pour half of the solution in a pot and warm it up?

rickybrooks05 · Feb 19, 2016

I placed mine in warm water and gave it a shake now and then.

rickybrooks05 · Feb 19, 2016

It cleared up after a bit.

abinder · Feb 19, 2016

If you have a spare air pump sitting around, try running an air hose from the air pump into the container. That will help move the water around inside and will probably help mix it up.
(I did that with the alkalinity mix when I didn't stir it at first when I was pouring it into the container of RO. It definitely helped to get rid of the big clumps of alkalinity mix that formed because of my stupidity.)

Allen

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 20, 2016

FWIW, when you mix magnesium chloride and magnesium sulfate, you often get a small amount of precipitated calcium sulfate (calcium is often an impurity in the magnesium chloride).

This precipitate is no concern, and can be dosed or not , It will dissolve in the tank, but is such a small part of the total that it is unimportant.

peacepleasure · Feb 20, 2016

I went ahead and heated up the mixture really good and low and behold, all have dissolved

Thanks everyone for the help!

Randy Holmes-Farley · Feb 20, 2016

peacepleasure said:
I went ahead and heated up the mixture really good and low and behold, all have dissolved Thanks everyone for the help!

Once it cools, if it repreciptiates, that would likely be the calcium sulfate I mentioned. The main ingredients should not typically have had a problem dissolving without heat.

peacepleasure · Feb 20, 2016

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Once it cools, if it repreciptiates, that would likely be the calcium sulfate I mentioned. The main ingredients should not typically have had a problem dissolving without heat.

I have no idea why it didn't. Thanks!