mixing the water

[leakyfaucet]

Hey veteran reefers, i was wondering how long you guys mix and areate the saltwater before adding it to the tank? Also, a friend of mine gave me a bucket of very fine live sand from his old aquarium and told me to rinse it but wasn't exactly specific... do i rinse the sand until the water is relatively clear? wouldn't this kill off any of the good bacteria? (I think the sand has been in storage for a few months... so maybe rinsing would be of no consequence) Thanks for the help!

 

[Dickie52]

I mix my water in a 5 gallon bucket and let it stand over night, with a heater in it.


wash the heck out of the sand, till the water is clear......just in case it's still alive, use salt water.

 

[jsholar]

Since I started a 75 gal tank I decided to buy a trash can to mix water in. I just make up about 15-20 gal of salt water before I go to bed (with cold filtered tap water). I turn on the pump that I have in the can for mixing and put on the trash can lid. The heat from the pump has the water to a perfect temperature by the next day. :mrgreen:

 

[sadielynn]

The way we do it is mix the water for 24 hours with power heads then add the salt mix an addtional 24 hours and bottle it , when I go to use it drop a power head in mix for 2 hours before use ..... Jsholar you may look into an RO/DI for your water it will give you better quality than tap water FYI :mrgreen:

 

[Anonymous]

I also do as sadie does except for the bottling part - I use so much i don't need to store it. It is important to allow your freshwater the 24 hours of airation time so that the co2 levels out and doesn't consume the buffering action of the salt mix when you add your salt. This step is often skipped by people but shouldn't be!

 

[skipm]

I aerate mine for at least half a day, the amount of time needed to properly aerate the water IMO is also dependant on the size pump you use and how much turbulence it produces. I use a Mag 7 pointed towards the top of a 30 gallon trashcan and get alot of water movement. I have also used small powerheads and felt I needed alot longer aeration time to get the job done properly.

 

[leakyfaucet]

Cool. OK i've done all that, got the specific gravity to within acceptable range (i think it was 1.024 ) but as soon as I started adding sand, the water became less dense... SG went down to the lower end of acceptable (Borderline 1.02) :shock:, and the sand seems like it has really fine dust particles still, i thought i had rinsed it all out, but my tank is still cloudy after 12 hours. Should i just give it more time to settle? Only other solution i can think of are: 1. Total water change and/or 2 get a hang on filter. As for fine sandpowder that has settled on the sand bed, do you think vacuuming it off might help? I don't know how useful having the fine particles will be other than cause the water to get more murky if stirred up later...

As for the SG, should i mix a new batch of water with a slightly higher SG and then add it to the tank? I don't think adding salt directly will be too good as the undissolved salt might settle on the sand bed and wreak havoc later.

My friend convinced me to get a 10 gallon instead of the 2.5.. aaagh! Now I feel like i should have stuck to the 2.5 haha... :neutral: :sad:

 

[sadielynn]

You still may want to get a HOB filter to help remove the addtional particals.......Tho I am not really sure as to why your salt spg changed , what are you useing to measure spg ?Make sure to clean the hydrometer in vineagar and rinse well let dry I tried to do it after every use when I had one ...you may look in to a digi-lab or a refractometer ... just better equipment in my opinion ...as for the particals and the murky water it will go down if you are not running a filter it may be awhile till it does so HTH :mrgreen: