Red Sea salt blue bucket alkalinity high

Spdjnky · May 22, 2022

I'm looking for any help I can get on anything I might have missed as far as mixing the blue bucket of Red Sea salt and getting the alkalinity right. I'm using the Hannah tester for alkalinity and a Tropic Marin test kit for alkalinity they both seem to be the same. I mixed 40 gallons with the first bucket and got 11 ppm @ 35ppt after talking with BRS and I got the same thing from the Red Sea Rep to mix the bucket up some more I actually took it out dumped it in and bigger 30 gallon men mixed it all up I got 9.4 ppm
this was the first bucket the second bucket that I have mixed all up 8.9 ppm both of these readings at 35 ppt
I've double checked everything I'm pretty sure that Oh my reading salinity included are correct I just don't know what else to do.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions any help because right now I'm batting 0 takes all the fun out of this hobby when you have to go through so much to just try to get a salt mix right

blaxsun · May 22, 2022

Red Sea recommends mixing at a water temperature of no more than 68°F, and once it mixes clear then heat it up to the tank temperature. I would probably take an alkalinity reading before and after. Is this for a brand new tank or just for a water change?

Spdjnky · May 22, 2022

No thank you it's just a water change I have switched to Red Sea and I'm really not too happy about it I was using Tropic Marin and never had a problem with alkalinity but traffic Marin was also too hard to get it was always out of stock I don't know if that's been solved or not but I'm going to look into it
I did not realize its 68 degree mixing temperature

blaxsun · May 22, 2022

Spdjnky said:
No thank you it's just a water change I have switched to Red Sea and I'm really not too happy about it I was using Tropic Marin and never had a problem with alkalinity but traffic Marin was also too hard to get it was always out of stock I don't know if that's been solved or not but I'm going to look into it
I did not realize its 68 degree mixing temperature

I use Tropic Marine Pro Reef myself. Just waiting on new supplies to show up at my LFS.