Remember sugar cubes at coffee and tea time? Why not have the same for salt at mix time?

[OfficeReefer]

@SPS2020 This is great feedback. That's exactly what I do too with a 10gal ATO, except I'd like to automate the dispensing and mixing of salt (meaning I never touch it). I did consider the ESV brand but went with TM after the BRS investigates on salt mixes. It's almost there with the Apex system, however the salt has presented a challenge, both in volume and weight.

@Randy Holmes-Farley Thanks for the thoughts on the bio-polymers. I too would not want this. Perhaps there's a natural solution to be found?

I once had this awesome automated home-brewing machine for beer called a PicoBrew. They had a following for a long time before big beer killed them off through M&A. Their approach to Eco-friendly brewing was sugar cane pods or cartridges. I never touched anything but the finished product. This is what had me thinking, if I automate everything, why not this aspect? Would more people enter the hobby if they didn't have to mess with salt?


From what I read, there's a decent amount of folks that don't automate any of these steps and then the others that are more of a "hands off" reef management. Either solution is fine I suppose, provided one does the water change and those remain consistent (to me, this is what matters the most). I hear from some in the hobby, that mixing salt and all the parameters that come with it are what keeps them out of reefing and why we have newer folks going freshwater more frequently. When I went to Aquashella, I saw more people coming out with driftwood and glo-fish stuff than coolers with corals, reef keeping items, etc.

 

[SPS2020]

@SPS2020 This is great feedback. That's exactly what I do too with a 10gal ATO, except I'd like to automate the dispensing and mixing of salt (meaning I never touch it). I did consider the ESV brand but went with TM after the BRS investigates on salt mixes. It's almost there with the Apex system, however the salt has presented a challenge, both in volume and weight.

@Randy Holmes-Farley Thanks for the thoughts on the bio-polymers. I too would not want this. Perhaps there's a natural solution to be found?

I once had this awesome automated home-brewing machine for beer called a PicoBrew. They had a following for a long time before big beer killed them off through M&A. Their approach to Eco-friendly brewing was sugar cane pods or cartridges. I never touched anything but the finished product. This is what had me thinking, if I automate everything, why not this aspect? Would more people enter the hobby if they didn't have to mess with salt?


From what I read, there's a decent amount of folks that don't automate any of these steps and then the others that are more of a "hands off" reef management. Either solution is fine I suppose, provided one does the water change and those remain consistent (to me, this is what matters the most). I hear from some in the hobby, that mixing salt and all the parameters that come with it are what keeps them out of reefing and why we have newer folks going freshwater more frequently. When I went to Aquashella, I saw more people coming out with driftwood and glo-fish stuff than coolers with corals, reef keeping items, etc.

Must be why I'm an all-grain brewer too. lol

 

[OfficeReefer]

Must be why I'm an all-grain brewer too. lol

lol. It was an all-grain system, very real and many different brands one would drink would license their formula to them. The unit was headless to protect the recipes and IP. The only difference on that was one would brew in same keg to ferment but another topic for another day.

I'm just mentioning that there's nothing wrong to a manual approach but if we simplify what we do for consistency, I think we will end up with better reefers and a better community overall.

 

[A Young Reefer]

Why not maybe have a hyper saline solution that you dilute in RODI water.
For example X ml of solution makes X liter/gallon.
Edit: After thinking about it, I don’t think that it’s possible to dissolve that much salt in a small quantity of water.
The saturation point of salt in water might not be enough to prepare such solution. Moreover temperature will be a very important variable.

 

[exnisstech]

I guess I'm in the minority here as measuring with a cup is not a big deal. Salt is in a bucket with a spin on/off lid. 32 cups in my brute container which has rodi plumbed to it on a float switch, flip the switch to the powerheads and I'm done. Rinse the cup so no caking there. Weighing would require an extra step. Maybe this is easy for me because my mixing station is in the basement next to a stationary tub

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Why not maybe have a hyper saline solution that you dilute in RODI water.
For example X ml of solution makes X liter/gallon.
Edit: After thinking about it, I don’t think that it’s possible to dissolve that much salt in a small quantity of water.
The saturation point of salt in water might not be enough to prepare such solution. Moreover temperature will be a very important variable.

Hypersaline seawater will tend to precipitate calcium carbonate and other materials due to the very high alk and calcium.