More dirty salt?

[Sean Clark]

So I was doing a water change today and notices that my salt was not mixing up clear like it usually does. I instantly thought about another company having issues currently and thought "oh no, it's contagious". I am using Seachem Aquavitro Salinity salt and have been using this salt for about 7 years without issue. I don't even know if this is an issue or not but I know from my experience that something is not right. This salt usually mixes up super clean and crystal clear ant now it is super cloudy. I can not even see the bottom of the bucket with this stuff. Has anyone else had any issues with this salt recently? Lot number 102136.00 pics attached. Hopefully I am just over thinking this. I appreciate your thoughts.

RODI

Mixed to 1.026

 

[rwheeler0213]

My suspicion is that we'll probably see quite a few threads on dirty salt for a while.

The same place that supplies tropic marin probably supplies ALLOT of companies in the industry.

I started noticing that my instant ocean is leaving residue very similar to what you have there. It has never done this before.

Been using IO for 3 years. Always leaves residue. Dispute that, my tanks are happy so I'll keep using it.

 

[Pntbll687]

Been using IO for 3 years. Always leaves residue. Dispute that, my tanks are happy so I'll keep using it.

I've been using IO for almost 10 years (regular purple box, not reef crystals). I used to get residue when I would heat the water, then mix in the salt. I switched to mixing the salt then heating and the residue would be so minute that I would have to wonder if it was left over from before.

But I cleaned my mixing station, and now I'm consistently getting more residue on the barrel. BUT, my tank is doing great, so I won't be switching.

 

[Pntbll687]

Been using IO for 3 years. Always leaves residue. Dispute that, my tanks are happy so I'll keep using it.

I think that the tropic marin "scare" has allot of people looking more closely at the salt they use. This can be both good and bad. A little precipitate here and there isn't necessarily a bad thing, and could just be dirt that got through to the final product.

Every salt has issues, even the one in this thread. Marc Levenson had a bad salt batch where it was missing (or chronically low) potassium, and his reef was dying. Seachem replaced his barrel of salt, after the issue was found.

We all think that water changes are a way to stop these things, but when the water you're adding in is the problem it's really hard to detect.

 

[Sean Clark]

Ok, so major update that I hope everyone actually reads.

I am an idiot and need to eat some crow here.

A lot of this "dirty salt" in my case can be attributed to precipitation. I was adding too much salt too fast for the water volume.

This was mentioned very early by @Jeeperz and I dismissed it because this was "how I always did it"... Well turns out that that is only half true.
Yes I have always just dumped in salt a cup at a time previously and without issue.
However this has usually been dumped into 40 gallon brute cans; not into smaller 7ish gallon salt buckets.
This was where I overreacted and thought something was wrong.

This is a very rookie mistake to make, I do not consider myself a rookie, and I still made it. I do know better but I was either too arrogant or too complicit or both and couldn't see the errors in my process.

I mixed a batch in the same bucket slowly and wouldn't you know... it is crystal clear.

@Pntbll687 posted about people being hyper sensitive to dirty salt and I would have to agree. I was over reacting.

7 gallons is not equal to 40...

Please feel free to roast me in the comments.

 

[Snoopy 67]

I mix up a 15 gallon batch every week with IO. I use a pump from the RO bin to a 30 gallon container.
After starting the pump I get a container full & pour it into the container near the stream of water & repeat twice. I feel the flowing water mixes it better than just dumping it in.

 

[Jeeperz]

I've always had precipitation from salinity when I used it and I mixed slowly as previously stated, in the salinity size buckets. I now mix in a 15 gallon container but use IO&RC as I can't get salinity anywhere within a couple hundred miles

 

[Jeeperz]

Glad you got it figured out, that's a win.