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

[OfficeReefer]

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

I used to enjoy easily knowing how much sugar I added from a common item at any table, anywhere and it was easy to do, tastes satisfied immediately. As I was putting my auto water change, fill and flush station together, I thought it would be helpful to have something like this and be able to toss these in and let them mix with some automation, but dispensing and storage of the salt is somewhat unwieldy in practice. I have considering creating my own Tide-pod-like containers for quick storage but again, seems like reinventing the wheel.

I wonder how many others would find getting their Tropic Marin that's in a box, with cubes mixed per 1/4 cup or something? How about in a jar with 1/2 cup Pro-Reef salt pods loaded with All-For-Reef as a bonus or something? Anyone else have thoughts on this concept or would like to see something else with their salt?

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Cool idea. There are salt blocks used in cooking and on farms, but they are just Nacl. One issue would be consistency - sea salt is a mix of about 18 different salts that are tough to mix evenly, and they also don’t dissolve at the same rate.
Jay

 

[OfficeReefer]

Cool idea. There are salt blocks used in cooking and on farms, but they are just Nacl. One issue would be consistency - sea salt is a mix of about 18 different salts that are tough to mix evenly, and they also don’t dissolve at the same rate.
Jay

@Jay Hemdal Interesting. I didn't know they were available in that aspect. Agreed, it would be hard to mix but a pod or something would work well for mixing up auto water changes when I am not there. Asking your spouse to mix up salt for you or view the spending under the tank or elsewhere is likely not going to win you new gear or new salt.

 

[fish farmer]

Cool idea. There are salt blocks used in cooking and on farms, but they are just Nacl. One issue would be consistency - sea salt is a mix of about 18 different salts that are tough to mix evenly, and they also don’t dissolve at the same rate.
Jay

I've used the salt lick blocks for slow release in fish culture tanks. They take forever to dissolve. For a bath/tub treatment granular mixes fast.

I would say no for a pod type application. It's not hard for me to measure cups of salt to my mixing barrel. I measure the sg prior to using, so a premix option would be wasted on me.

 

[mckinney0171]

This is a brilliant idea. Keeps the guessing out of measuring salt and keeps my fingers out of the salt (no more salt burns). I love it.

 

[OfficeReefer]

@fish farmer Good to know. I've used pool salt for some time without issue and mine at least, mixes as fast as the Tropic Marin Pro Reef salt. That's about four hours for me but if I had something that did this faster or required me to not deal with caked measuring cups, that could be a plus.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Man, even having them portioned out in some kind of bag or something would be cool. Oh well, until then, I'll keep using my measuring cup.

 

[ying yang]

Buy a mechanical press that compresses powders into a brick form,then can make up multiple blocks Into whatever size you needed ( ovbiously would need to weigh the salt first and check that mixes to salinity you want,then weigh out and compress them and make as many blocks as you needed, but would need to fully mix your full bag off salt or bucket off salt first to make sure all consistent ,like I've read many times beat to mix salt first when buying new bucket ibcase some parts off it are higher salinity or alk or whatever if get me.

But if going through all trouble off Individually weighing multiple lots to compress into blocks to use later,then can just keep in buckets or bags and just weigh out the salt each time want to make so e saltwater ha ha,and save money on buying the compressing machine and save time lol

 

[Key Largo]

I have found that the easiest, most accurate way of getting the correct portion of salt, is by weight. The cup by cup method varies too much. Both by the inaccuracy of cup sizes and by how compacted each cup is. The salt manufacturer usually puts a 'weight per gallon' type formula on their packaging. I purchased an inexpensive digital kitchen scale on Amazon. Put a container on scale, zero it out, and start adding salt until you reach the desired weight. In the past I have created pre-portioned ziplock bags , each with the same amount needed for water changes. If you do that all at once while you have the scale out, you have created pre-measured pods. The initial portioning takes a little time, but the next water changes are just dump and go. Also has the added advantage of keeping portions dry in individual bags. I use 8 1/2 (8.8) lbs of reef crystals per 25 gallon for 1.026 SG. BTW also eliminated getting distracted while counting cups, lol.

 

[ReeferMadness01]

I have found that the easiest, most accurate way of getting the correct portion of salt, is by weight. The cup by cup method varies too much. Both by the inaccuracy of cup sizes and by how compacted each cup is. The salt manufacturer usually puts a 'weight per gallon' type formula on their packaging. I purchased an inexpensive digital kitchen scale on Amazon. Put a container on scale, zero it out, and start adding salt until you reach the desired weight. In the past I have created pre-portioned ziplock bags , each with the same amount needed for water changes. If you do that all at once while you have the scale out, you have created pre-measured pods. The initial portioning takes a little time, but the next water changes are just dump and go. Also has the added advantage of keeping portions dry in individual bags. I use 8 1/2 (8.8) lbs of reef crystals per 25 gallon for 1.026 SG. BTW also eliminated getting distracted while counting cups, lol.

I agree with the weight option. All my friends measure by cups and I go by weight. Lol

 

[afrokobe]

Man, even having them portioned out in some kind of bag or something would be cool. Oh well, until then, I'll keep using my measuring cup.

I remember seeing a brs video about a company that sold salt in 5 gallon pouches. Basically dump the pouch into 5 gallons of water. I cant recall the brand, but I remember it being pretty expensive.

 

[Woodyman]

Man, even having them portioned out in some kind of bag or something would be cool. Oh well, until then, I'll keep using my measuring cup.

Two Little Fishies AccuraSea1​

I may be giving that a try when I need to buy salt again. Haven't fully committed yet though, especially since like others I pre weigh into a sealable container for my next use.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I agree with the weight option. All my friends measure by cups and I go by weight. Lol

One thing to be wary of with weight - sea salt is really hydroscopic. If you open a bag in a humid environment, it will abosrb water which increases its weight. Then, the same weight of salt will not make as much seawater as the anhydrous salt will.

Jay

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’d also be wary of anything that slows down dissolution. You want dissolving salt to avoid any unnecessary high salinity situations that could drive precipitation of calcium carbonate. Chunks that sit on the bottom might attain more of such scenarios in water between them.

As to polymer pods, we definitely wouldn’t want the types used for detergents because that would be adding a lot of poorly biodegradeable polyvinyl alcohol to the water.

 

[alabella1]

I have found that the easiest, most accurate way of getting the correct portion of salt, is by weight. The cup by cup method varies too much. Both by the inaccuracy of cup sizes and by how compacted each cup is. The salt manufacturer usually puts a 'weight per gallon' type formula on their packaging. I purchased an inexpensive digital kitchen scale on Amazon. Put a container on scale, zero it out, and start adding salt until you reach the desired weight. In the past I have created pre-portioned ziplock bags , each with the same amount needed for water changes. If you do that all at once while you have the scale out, you have created pre-measured pods. The initial portioning takes a little time, but the next water changes are just dump and go. Also has the added advantage of keeping portions dry in individual bags. I use 8 1/2 (8.8) lbs of reef crystals per 25 gallon for 1.026 SG. BTW also eliminated getting distracted while counting cups, lol.

This sounds awesome. My issue is more knowing how much water is in my Brute and or Homer buckets. Anyone have any tips and tricks to know how many gallons are where. I have a 20, 30 and 45 brutes.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

This sounds awesome. My issue is more knowing how much water is in my Brute and or Homer buckets. Anyone have any tips and tricks to know how many gallons are where. I have a 20, 30 and 45 brutes.

I just fill each container with tap water using a measured five gallon bucket and then mark the outside of the larger container with a sharpie when I reach certain volumes: 5,10,20 gallons.
Jay

 

[A Young Reefer]

I remember seeing a brs video about a company that sold salt in 5 gallon pouches. Basically dump the pouch into 5 gallons of water. I cant recall the brand, but I remember it being pretty expensive.

Two little fishes I think.
Edit: someone already beat me to it.

 

[alabella1]

I just fill each container with tap water using a measured five gallon bucket and then mark the outside of the larger container with a sharpie when I reach certain volumes: 5,10,20 gallons.
Jay

My stupid Homer buckets don't have any markings either so I'm not sure where the 5gal mark on that is either!!

 

[tbrown]

My concern (which sounds similar to @Randy Holmes-Farley 's point) is that anything added to bind the particles together into the cube would then be dissolved into the reef tank so you'd need something that wouldn't build up in the system or settle out. Ideally you'd want something that would be easily filtered out and that wouldn't affect water quality.

 

[SPS2020]

Alas, no pods for me. I use ESV salt mix which is comprised of two parts liquid and two parts granular (salt and magnesium). So, using weight for a measurement is the ideal way to go. I mix in my 10 gallon ATO container (100g tank); it is multi-use for weekly water changes and top off otherwise.

Interesting idea though!