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DIY Salt- Anyone interested in a group build?


DaveS

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Just wondering if anyone was interested in a combination scavenger hunt and group build. This looks like a pretty reliable salt recipe: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=18065042&postcount=549 . I recall having seen just about everything listed at Home Depot, Lowe's, Costco and pool supply shops. Thought if a few were interested, it would be fun to share the work of gathering everything and then mix up a bunch of batches for later use. Nothing in the recipe indicated we couldn't get it down to batches of 50G each. Just need a couple of decent scales to measure and bags to store them.

 

I also don't know how much money will be saved but sometimes it's not just about the Benjamins. :laugh:

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I remember reading this at some point and being intrigued. I am interested in playing, but I have a couple of random questions.

 

How do you mix it together such a large volume of salts/powders into a homogenous mixture without contaminating it? (I was thinking something like a concrete mixer would probably work, but I worry about contaminants and salt powder going airborne).

 

Do you know what the various levels are in when mixed into water (Ca, Mg, dKH, etc.)? With my low demand softy system and automatic water changer, one of my requirements for salt is that the initial "consumable" levels be high enough that I don't have to dose anything (IO just doesn't quite make it for me). It might be worthwhile to have a detailed chemical analysis done as a baseline.

 

I certainly have enough extra 5g salt buckets to both give out and/or store the mixed up salt.

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I would be interested in learning more. First thing that came to my mind was being able to mix your own salt and adjusting ingredients to the levels you like to keep your tank.

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All good questions Chad. A big part of putting this up is to try to work out some of these questions as a team. For some who pre-mix larger batches, a bag 50G mix wouldn't be a problem as you just throw everything in the bag in a once. Those who want to do 10G at a time would possibly benefit from something like a cement mixer.

 

IO is notoriously bad for having low Mg levels so yea, being able to customize the mix a little would be nice. Let's keep the ideas coming for this project!

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Found this:

 

For those who are interested, the following artificial seawater recipe is taken from "Chemical Oceanography" by Frank Millero. It makes a recipe that matches 35 ppt seawater in terms of major ions, but does not try to match all minor and trace elements, most of which will be present as impurities in the major elements.

 

23.98 g sodium chloride

5.029 g magnesium chloride

4.01 g sodium sulfate

1.14 g calcium chloride

0.699 g potassium chloride

0.172 g sodium bicarbonate

0.100 g potassium bromide

0.0254 g boric acid

0.0143 g strontium chloride

0.0029 g sodium fluoride

Water to 1 kg total weight.

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Sweet, a DIY plastic mixer :) http://www.ehow.com/how_6820325_make-concrete-mixer-plastic-barrel.html

 

I noticed these were different between the two sources, not sure where to find the other three, but boron is easily found in the supplements section of most local pharmacies (and since it is intended for consumption is probably fairly pure grade).

 

0.100 g potassium bromide

0.0254 g boric acid

0.0143 g strontium chloride

0.0029 g sodium fluoride

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I remember reading this at some point and being intrigued. I am interested in playing, but I have a couple of random questions.

 

How do you mix it together such a large volume of salts/powders into a homogenous mixture without contaminating it? (I was thinking something like a concrete mixer would probably work, but I worry about contaminants and salt powder going airborne).

I wonder if making the salt similiar to how ESV or tunze's new salt(can't remember which) works, would be easier than trying to homogenize the different chemicals. there probably is a formula, like add mag and sodium chloride 1st, so that basically the premixed solutions youadd after that are more like B-ionic 2 part

Do you know what the various levels are in when mixed into water (Ca, Mg, dKH, etc.)? With my low demand softy system and automatic water changer, one of my requirements for salt is that the initial "consumable" levels be high enough that I don't have to dose anything (IO just doesn't quite make it for me). It might be worthwhile to have a detailed chemical analysis done as a baseline.

 

I certainly have enough extra 5g salt buckets to both give out and/or store the mixed up salt.

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Hehe it's funny how it's usually the same gang that joins in for projects like this. I'm still waiting for 1-2 others that I expect. :clap:

 

One hiccup with the mixer idea- not all materials come in the same grain. Depending on which salt we use, it comes in pretty large pellets. Maybe we just have to make sure to buy brand with the right form.

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this is the other post, with the weights, he also said he added components one at a time then waited 24 hours for it to clear. the gentleman he borrowed/copied the mix from also was in the thread and mentioned morton solar salt mixed cleaner and faster, but neither i think mentioned mixing the components together for a premix, (abet my limited chemistry) is telling me that a sealed container and shaker should keep everything in and wouldnt be an issue if you got the premix weights correct.

 

weights of salts per 1000

 

he also was nice enough to give the formula for smaller batches, so for 200 gallons multiply by .200 for 50 gallon bags use .050 on the gram amounts

 

I would be interested (was gonna buy it all myself and try it out for 200 ish gallons, but if others up there are working on it as well, id try some.

 

only time i honestly may be able to get up there (health willing) is we are shooting for the meeting weekend. if that is too soon then just list me as an interested standby

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Guest thefishman65

Depending on when and if we can make it work for small batched I would be in.

 

PS I have 40+ pounds of make flake which I am pretty sure is ingredient 2

5.029 g magnesium chloride

Or roughly 3,600 kg of water

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Dave,

Was this the recipe that you found?

I used the recipe below for 1000 gallons.

 

95,920 grams - Sodium Chloride (Morton's High Purity Swimming Pool Salt - Could also use Water Softener Salt).

20,116 grams - Magnesium Chloride (Ice Melter)

15,668 grams - Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salt)

4,560 grams - Calcium Chloride (Ice Melter, There are other sources)

2,796 grams - Potassium Chloride (Water Softener available at HD)

668 grams - Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda)

57.2 grams - Strontium (Kent Marine, etc.)

Kent Marine Essential Elements - As directed on bottle for your volume of water.

 

I actually had this post up on my computer until recently (when I just took the recipe and saved it). I think that I recall finding the link in JohnW's 3000-gallon build thread. (I see that it's now been posted up above, too.)

 

I don't recall if this recipe accounts for hydration of the compounds, though. You have to be careful about that because water that's absorbed by hygroscopic compounds adds weight and must be accounted for when you do your ion-counts. Otherwise, your final mix winds up off-target. (For example, it's important to understand the difference between anhydrous calcium chloride and calcium chloride hexahydrate and to adjust weights appropriately.)

 

If I have a little time, I'll take a look at how this recipe balances out numbers-wise.

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(edited)

And now the gang is all here... :biggrin:

 

I know who's got the scale and chemistry background! :clap:

Edited by DaveS
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Dave,

Was this the recipe that you found?

I used the recipe below for 1000 gallons.

 

95,920 grams - Sodium Chloride (Morton's High Purity Swimming Pool Salt - Could also use Water Softener Salt).

20,116 grams - Magnesium Chloride (Ice Melter)

15,668 grams - Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom Salt)

4,560 grams - Calcium Chloride (Ice Melter, There are other sources)

2,796 grams - Potassium Chloride (Water Softener available at HD)

668 grams - Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda)

57.2 grams - Strontium (Kent Marine, etc.)

Kent Marine Essential Elements - As directed on bottle for your volume of water. .

 

Yup, this is the recipe I was thinking about. Other than the Strontium, everything else is easy to find household chemicals. Also, all the materials are in high enough quantity that we can cut the recipe to 50g or possible less. At less than 50g batches, the Strontium becomes a matter of a few pinches here and there. I guess we should look up how much the Kent Trace Elements costs but using it would eliminate having to find K bromide, boric acid and other more difficult to locate chemicals which we use sparingly.

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Haha,

 

Tom, I was wondering about the hydration level of the various compounds. Do you think it is worth it to bake a batch weighing it before and after in order to get an idea of the level of water that is absorbed?

 

Regarding different grain sizes: Does anyone have a burr grinder?

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Dave, boric acid is easy to find:

 

197912_10150128850414453_591119452_6583726_3407749_n.jpg

 

A buddy of mine posted this on facebook a couple of weeks ago (we were joking about over the counter reactivity control, a nuclear joke)

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Haha,

 

Tom, I was wondering about the hydration level of the various compounds. Do you think it is worth it to bake a batch weighing it before and after in order to get an idea of the level of water that is absorbed?

 

Regarding different grain sizes: Does anyone have a burr grinder?

I don't think that you need to go to that extreme. You have to understand that hydration is normally not uniform in practically any off-the-shelf preparation. What you're buying is a mix that is predominantly in one form - or was, at time of manufacture. Exposure can change the balance.

 

For example, calcium chloride has 4 common hydrated states, and one anyhydrous (no hydration) state. In the anhydrous forum (CaCl2), it weighs in at about 111 gram per mole and is 36% calcium by weight. As a monohydrate (CaCl2*H20), it's 129 g/mole (31% Ca by weight). It has dihydrate (27%), tetrahydrate (22%), and hexahydrate (18%) forms, too. So, you can see how it makes a difference. You normally see what the predominant form is from the label. I think that most calcium chloride ice melt is in the dihydrate form. There are exceptions, though. Prestone Driveway Heat, for example, is mostly anhydrous. The difference in calcium content is significant.

 

Magnesium chloride is similar. It has an anhydrous form and a hexahydrate form. The anhydrous form is 25.5% magnesium by weight, while the hexahydrate form is 11.9% magnesium by weight. Most MgCl2 ice melt is going to be in hexahydrate form.

 

Epsom salt, or magnesium sulfate comes in six different states. I think the stuff that you buy in the drug store is primarily heptahydrated (MgCl2*7H2O).

 

And so on.

 

The thing is, you can measure out the weights but still be off in the end, leaving you to make adjustments to the mix if you want to dial-in the ion balance. To minimize the error, you need to have some idea of the compounds you're working with from the start.

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Based on what you are saying, Tom, each batch will mix up slightly different based on weights, right?

 

So, it would seem that each batch should be fully mixed, added to water, tested, have the mixture adjusted and remixed, added to water, and repeat until the mix is as desired. That would make it tough to do Sean's idea of having separate powder mixes.

 

It might be a good idea to throw together an excel spreadsheet that calculates expected changes based on an input to minimize iterations to the desired mix; I can do that.

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I would think that after we figure out which form its in, we would use those weights and go with that. We don't do any adjustments to the salt mixes we buy after mixing. I would think there has to be some margin of error we ware working within.

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I'm sure Brian is one of them. biggrin.gif

 

 

 

Of course. But we still need to recharge DI resin. Maybe we can do that at the same time in Dave's back yard.

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Here's the analysis. It's late and I've not checked it 100% but think it's basically right.

 

Here's a simplified summary:

The basic recipe (1st chart) is OK. It assumes that all of the components are hydrated. Magnesium and calcium look to be a bit low.

 

The second chart is the basic recipe, but it uses anhydrous calcium chloride. Calcium is better, but magnesium is still a touch low.

 

The third chart is the basic recipe, but I messed with the proportions some to improve the ionic balance. I didn't optimize for sulfates, though I probably could.

 

The fourth chart is Millero's recipe. It's good, but CAUTION: It's not for a gallon - It's for a LITER! You'll not be able to find all of the components of this recipe at the hardware store like the others.

 

I did not consider fluorine or bromine to be that important. I did not consider borates in the analysis.

 

I did not have enough information about Kent's essential elements to bring it into the picture. It's in liquid form anyway, so it can't be part of your dry mix.

 

Compare the "ppm" and "Target ppm" lines (near the bottom) to evaluate how the recipe performs against target values. (I just noticed that it says "ppt" on the spreadsheet images. That's a typo. It should be ppm, not ppt.)

 

Also, add the HCO3- and CO3-- lines before comparing as the two are interchangeable forms of one another as pH shifts (both are forms of cabonate alkalinity).

 

Chart 1: Basic Recipe:

gallery_2631296_685_2316.jpg

 

Chart 2: Basic recipe with anhydrous CaCl2 substitution:

gallery_2631296_685_19768.jpg

 

Chart 3: Improved basic recipe:

gallery_2631296_685_13056.jpg

 

Chart 4: Millero recipe (for 1 liter 35ppt asw):

gallery_2631296_685_53461.jpg

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