mixing water

[rmenkes]

I started a water change this morning like I've done a hundred time before however 5 hours after filling my 30 gallon garbage can with water (tap--but that's what I always use) throwing in my salt and dropping in a powerhead everything is all white(milky). What's up? This has never happenned before.

 

[4angel]

Ive had a simillar problem. I blamed it on a new batch of salt. It was a new box. It was either that or the temp of the water I placed in the bucket. After mixing and airating and checking I put the water in my tank It cleared up.
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Paintball variations

 

[Anonymous]

:roll:

i'd be willing to bet you never ran a test on your tap either.

http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=17004

 

[Anonymous]

rmenkes-
fwiw-i suggest you test your tapwater as thoroughly as possible each time you use it, if you're not processing it in any way.also, contact your local borough, and request a copy of the quarterly analysis of your drinking water mandated by the epa,it can be very enlightening- you may then decide to either buy purified H2O, or get a home r.o.d.i. unit.
tap water constituents can change on a daily basis. some of these can cause various precipitates from your salt mix(e.g.-calcium)

i have seen tapwater with:
above 3.0 ppm phosphate
above 1.5 ppm ammonia
above 50 ppm nitrate

(these levels sometimes from one sample)
(pH and hardness can change greatly at the same tap, too.)

i know of the practice of adding coagulating agents based on aluminum by municipalities, to improve particulate clarity in drinking water, and linked this, by timeline, to a massive die off of freshwater tropicals at an lfs i used to work with, after consulting with one of the water dep. engineers.
after i found out what sometimes gets put into tap water intentionally, without notification to consumers,as well as the ease to which other things get dumped/leached into resevoirs,(voc's, heavy metals,etc)i won't ever drink straight tap again, nor do my fish, or my dog!

i don't think 'a new bucket of salt' is to blame, in these instances-that one bucket is a very tiny amount of a fairly well mixed batch-if one bucket was way off, in its makeup,then many others should be, too.i have yet to hear of a mass incident of funky salt.chances are it's variation from the tap.

 

[reefland]

I've seen issues with salt dissolving mainly fram salt bags and boxes. It doesn't take much of a hole letting air in to turn the calcium in the mix to calcium carbonate which won't readily dissolve while mixing.