New Build - Adding Water

[Scotty8284]

I'm a newb and have a quick question. I was running out of room to place things for my new build, (I live in a condo), so I put my rock and substrate in the tank BEFORE I added water. My RODI system is now up and running, so I'm ready to add the water.

HERE IS THE QUESTION:

Can I still put my RODI directly into the tank (that's already got the rock and sand in it), and then mix my salt in the tank?

OR, do I need to premix the water and salt, then add it to the tank?

Your help is appreciated.

 

[AfaceInTheCrowd]

You can just add salt slowly to avoid precipitation

 

[daybreaksky]

as an experiment, 2 weeks ago I was setting up a bare bottom QT and added RO and then salt. It's 30 gallon with 2 powerheads running a pretty good flow. I added 1 cup at a time trying to do it slowly so it wasn't just clump falling down.
4 hours later, the bare bottom was covered in crust of undissolved salt that I had to poke with a scraper to break it up and get back in to the water column to continue to mix.

you are gonna get a million conflicting opinions on this subject but since you don't have critters you can't do too much harm other than have calcium precipitation from salt slurry cake up the sand in to chunks.

 

[daybreaksky]

P.S. put a large garbage can next to the tank and fill that, add a power head and let it mix overnight. it doesn't take up that much space...