sodium hydrogen carbonate and precipitation in pre-mixed long term storage

Niklas123321

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Hello everyone,
I am using tropic marin pro reef salt, as I like to pre-mix my salt and keep it in storage for relatively long. This usually mixes around 6.8-7 dkh at 1.025 specific gravity.
My tank is a soft coral tank only with leathers, gsp, zoanthus, no SPS or LPS corals, so I shouldn't have much taking dkh out of the water.

Still, I'd like to raise this up to 8 just to be safe. So my question is, will dkh stay stable during long duration storage when adding sodium hydrogen carbonate during mixing? Or will precipitation change it? To my knowledge, tropic marin pro reef is a very stable salt mix, so the question is specifically about precipitation in long term storage when raised with sodium hydrogen carbonate.
 
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Niklas123321

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And another question, does tropic marine classic store as well as the pro salt? This might be better for me just for simplicity.
 

Randy Holmes-Farley

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It is alkalinity and pH that lead to precipitation in any salt mix. Baking soda (sodium hydrogen carbonate) tends to lower pH a bit, so if you do not raise alkalinity too much, you are limiting the chances for precipitation.
 
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Niklas123321

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It is alkalinity and pH that lead to precipitation in any salt mix. Baking soda (sodium hydrogen carbonate) tends to lower pH a bit, so if you do not raise alkalinity too much, you are limiting the chances for precipitation.
Alright, ty.

Could I switch from the tropic marin pro with 7dkh to the classic, which mixes at 10dkh, by slowly raising my tanks dkh to 10 with baking soda, and use the classic salt mix going forward?
Or could raising dkh with baking soda from a salt mix at 7 up to 10 be an issue with precipitation?

If so, should I just do more water changes with the classic salt and raise dkh that way?
 

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Alright, ty.

Could I switch from the tropic marin pro with 7dkh to the classic, which mixes at 10dkh, by slowly raising my tanks dkh to 10 with baking soda, and use the classic salt mix going forward?
Or could raising dkh with baking soda from a salt mix at 7 up to 10 be an issue with precipitation?

If so, should I just do more water changes with the classic salt and raise dkh that way?

If demand is very low, you may not need to add anything and can just switch to the new salt water mix.

But if you want to raise the tank alkalinity for any reason, baking soda is a fine way to do it.
 

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