That's crazy talk: There's no melting in reefing

Randy Holmes-Farley

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Unless it comes out of your freezer, nothing in this hobby "melts".

I've never understood why anyone would use the term "melt" for the dissolution of calcium carbonate. It's as wrong as claiming that you drink crackers. But it is incredibly widespread and, IMO, makes us look bad.

Does you salt mix melt into water?
Does your alkalinity supplement melt in water?
(hopefully you know that answer is "no" lol)

So why claim the media is "melting"?

In case the reason that the first user picked such a word is that they couldn't think of the correct word, here's there right option for future use: dissolve.

Salt mixes dissolve.

Alkalinity supplements dissolve.

Calcium carbonate dissolves.

Carry on and Happy Reefing!
 
Unless it comes out of your freezer, nothing in this hobby "melts".

I've never understood why anyone would use the term "melt" for the dissolution of calcium carbonate. It's as wrong as claiming that you drink crackers. But it is incredibly widespread and, IMO, makes us look bad.

Does you salt mix melt into water?
Does your alkalinity supplement melt in water?
(hopefully you know that answer is "no" lol)

So why claim the media is "melting"?

In case the reason that the first user picked such a word is that they couldn't think of the correct word, here's there right option for future use: dissolve.

Salt mixes dissolve.

Alkalinity supplements dissolve.

Calcium carbonate dissolves.

Carry on and Happy Reefing!
Always keeping it real lol.
 
Yeah, but my Torch Coral 'melted' the other day... ;)

It's easy to get in the habit of using the term incorrectly when one sees it so frequently on the reef aquarium forums.

Another one I have always found amusing is 'cooking live rock'...when there isn't actually any heating involved.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/cooking-live-rock.25745/
 
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