Salt water mix question

lynncgo

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#1
Ok, i have had a tank for a few years now and at first, I was quite diligent about taking measurements every week for about the first year. Then it got to the point where nothing ever changed so I just kept doing water changes and everything was great. Now, I want to start a bigger tank and I want to better understand the minutia about what is going on.... =)

I typically use red sea coral pro mix and on the directions, it says not to mix the salt for more than 4 hours.... why?

How does everyone keep a salt water reservoir for emergencies or more efficient water changes if you can't keep it around?

I tried keeping mixed salt water in jugs once and it started depositing minerals the walls of the container.

Thanks for your help!
 

reefes pieces

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#2
Some people use brute trash cans to mix and you can purchase water storage containers which will cost much more. Even home depot buckets work fine.
Mixing the Red sea coral pro for over 4 hours may start to decrease the alkalinity below advertised levels. Won't make the salt go bad if you mix too long but just be aware that parameters may be different. Should test for this every so often anyways.
Here's a few general rules of thumb

1. make sure to always add salt to water and never add water to salt.
2. Mix the salt batch well as ingredients can shift and separate causing inconsistencies in parameters
3. Spot check Alk, CA, and Mag especially if you get a new batch of salt and never trust the published specs
 
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#3
The salt mix/4 hours does not makr any sense.

There must be some verbage there missing, as we all know that our tanks mix the salt almost non stop.

Sent from my 1+3t
 

cmsurfr22

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#4
are you sure it doesn't say mix 4 hours prior to adding it to your tank? that would make more sense. on another note i stopped doing water changes ever since i added a bio pellet reactor.
 
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#5
The freshly mixed Red Sea salts will sometimes precipitate out if you mix them for too long. Pretty sure its still fine to use, as this has happened to me and I still used it. Water was just cloudy for a bit. When you store it just dont have a power head mixing the water. Theres a few videos from Red Sea about it on YouTube.


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#6
Water movement = expedited evaporation. Evaporation = change of advertised values.

Its just like a vitamin supplement or a medication. They can't guarantee their product reliability unless the parameters are correct.
 
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#7
In addition to alkalinity drop from calcium precipitation due to the high levels of calcium and alkalinity in their Red Sea Pro mix, it also contains amino acids that will deteriorate when stored.
 

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