Salt Mixing

[Guest DANMOQUIN]

Hey guys,

    I love saltwater fish. I have done tons of research and I know a lot about them. Unfortunatly, I took down all of my saltwater tanks because they became too much of a hassle to maintain. I have 21 freshwater tanks, and am able to do 75% weekly water changes on them, I'd like to do 50% weekly on salt, but my problem is I hate mixing it. I usually do it in a 5-gallon bucket, but that is sooo much work, I have to stop the water, mix, stop the water mix, etc. Is there any other way to mix the alt? I have thought about taking the fish out into a 5-gallon bucket, doing the change, and then mixing the salt in the tank. I was worried though that this would disturb and stress out the fish. Do you all think it would be ok? Also, could i keep a lion or trigger in a 55 gallon tank? Thanks

Dan

[Guest tgallo]

are you  kidding me or what, take out the fish to mix the salt, sounds crazy.

[Guest reeffoto]

There is no need to do 50% weekly water changes.  I have never done more than 20% a month.  It is much cheaper to buy a good skimmer and do less water changes than it is to keep buying salt.  depending on which lion and trigger you get they would be fine but they would out grow a 50 gallon.  IMO a 55 is to narrow for these fish.  Doing water changes by mixing salt in the tank is a very bad idea.

[Guest DANMOQUIN]

How else would you mix the salt?

[Sph2sail]

Lionfish are way too dangerous to continuously handle them.  Once in the tank, be very careful with them but leave them there.  One of the guys at MarineScene was trying to capture one and got stung.  He ended up in ER for about 5 hours under careful supervision.

 

That said, mixing salt is pretty easy.  Most of us have a separate reservoir that we use to mix up our water change water.  A key is to have it circulate and stabilize for at least 24 hours.  Salts need time to form proper ionization in water and you need to verify salinity and get proper temperature before exchanging with the main tank.  Here's how I do mine:

 

I have two 32G Rubbermaid Brute trash cans on wheels with lids.  One I mix up the water in, the other is used to receive the waste water from the main tank.

 

Load the first Brute with your new water.  Mix in the salt.  Verify initial salinity is right.  Add one or two powerheads for circulation and add a heater.  I stir around the salt until it is 95% or more dissolved then just let this run for over 24 hours.  The heater should be set to the temperature in your main tank (mine set to about 80-81deg F).  Re-check salinity (as specific gravity varies with temperature).  Water should be set at proper salinity and temperature and stabilized before exchanging it into your display tank.

 

Next, use a pump to dump water out of main display tank into your second Brute.  Then use the pump to take the new salt water from the first Brute and refill your tank.

 

Use the pump to dispose of the old water.

 

s

[Guest DANMOQUIN]

Thanks for the info, I did learn some things from that, but that would still be too much work for me. It would take longer to do a water change on a 55 salt then all of my freshwater tanks. Thanks for the info though,

Dan

[pez]

Dan,

 

Do you have any live rock or live sand in your SW tanks?  If not, I'd recommend 20% water changes at least every month, probably more like every other week.  If you have LR and LS, you only need 10-20% water changes every month, fewer if you know what you are doing.

 

I use a similar method as Steve.  Although, a large enough pump will act as a heater, but you proabably want to get use a heater anyway.  I always have about 40 gallons of SW and FW ready to go.  After a few days the salinity of the SW changes, but some additional FW fixes that.  If you don't already have one, get a good RO/DI unit to make FW on demand.  Do not use tap water!

 

FWIW - you definately don't want to take your fish out to change your water or mix the water in the tank.  Adding FW to your tank will kill most of the living things in your tank (like the nitrifying bacteria, amphipods, copepods, etc.).  

 

-Tom

[Guest DANMOQUIN]

Thanks for the info... I successfully kept a 55 reef for 1 year (mixing salt became too much work) without using RO water, I just used water from the tap, why is RO so important?

[Sph2sail]

The key is time.

 

With a closed environment reef, we are concentrating the polutants found in our water supply constantly.  As you evaporate water, the concentrations of bad things increase.  After a year or two, suddenly bad things happen (coral die off, fish illnesses, etc.).

 

I can not think of a min/max time before this will happen, but it will.  If you evaporate water, you should replace it with H2O only, not H20 plus dissolved solids, etc., found in tap water.

 

In my system, I evaporate about 2G water every day.  I do not think I could run for too long before stuff would concentrate to a level that things were very unhappy.

 

Water changes help:  the solution is dilution.  But if you dilute with poluted stuff, it will not help forever.

 

s

[Gatortailale]

Mixing salt:

 

I use either 5 gallong buckets and/or an old 20 gallon tank.  I put a maxi-jet 1200 in the tank and mix my RO water with salt.  Then I let it mix at least 2 days to let it stabalize.  Depending on location of tank, I either pump water into 5 g buckets to pump into tank or pump from mix tank into fish tank.

 

As for how I remove old water,  I use a python hose that connects to faucet.  I use this to suck the detritus out of my sump.  I NEVER use it to put tap water into the tank.  Little if ever mess for my buy sucking out the junk via this method.  I also mark my sump so I know how much to suck out so that new replacement water does not exceed the system volume.  WHY: because once the water evaporates, the salinity is left behind and I don't want increase in salinity level.

 

HTH

Craig

[Guest DANMOQUIN]

Thanks for the info guys. I dont think Im going to be starting a sw any time son, too expensive with the RO. But thanks again. Unless I start keeping discus again and buy an RO machine :p

[Sph2sail]

I got a nice 50G/day 4 stage RO/DI system on eBay for about $120.  Inexpensive compared to purchasing distilled water at $3/gal.

 

s

[michaelg]

It also is really dependant on local water supply- where we live we need the filters, though other places, especially where people have well water, it is fine.  Phosphates and silicates being the 2 biggest elemental contributors to algae blooms.  Other toxins, such as heavy metals if present will build up as sphsail suggested.  5 gallons a month is only a clean home depot bucket worth of salt water and literally takes about 10 minutes to do with a 1/2 inch tube to suck the water out...