How much salt?

[stoneriff]

Hello;
I am new to this, so please excuse the silly questions. I bought a 72 gallon bow front tank. I'm planning on starting with live sand and live rock. I have bought 70lbs. of arag-alive sand. I am purchasing 100lbs. of cured live rock from house of laughter. I would assume that I will end up with 40 or so gallons of water space in the tank when all is said and done. What is the amount of salt mixture per gallon? I bought a bucket of Tropic Marin salt. I really don't want to mess this up. Please help. All advice is welcome and appreciated. Thank you. Jesse.

 

[Killerdrgn]

Get a refractometer and mix up the salt slowly until the refractometer reads 1.025. It's preferable to mix the salt in a seperate container so if you add too much you can just dilute it. Oh and it should be heated to about 78 degrees.

 

[stoneriff]

Thank you. I'm a little nervous about screwing this up. I bought a refractometer the other day. I'm awaiting my new R/O unit. i bought one from Big Al's online, and it arrived broken. I'm awaiting a replacement. Jesse.

 

[vinny]

looks like your heading the right way so far got 2 key items ro and refractometer

 

[stoneriff]

Thanks Vinny.

 

[KathyC]

Get a refractometer and mix up the salt slowly until the refractometer reads 1.025. It's preferable to mix the salt in a seperate container so if you add too much you can just dilute it. Oh and it should be heated to about 78 degrees.

Hope you don't mind, but I would like to clarify this just a little..I keep reading it and maybe you guys are talking guy-speak, but it's confusing to me..

...Stone..you do want to be careful not to add too much salt at one time. If you add way too much salt the salt will precipitate..meaning it will turn to a solid and sink to the bottom...you'll end up with cloudy water and the ingredients that you want in your tank will be sitting as a powder on the bottom of the bucket..and you won't be able to re-mix them back into the water.
Actually that is a pretty awful description..lol but the point is you CAN add too much salt to the water and if you really do over do it - you won't be able to just dilute it to make it useable. Yay...that was slightly better

 

[Killerdrgn]

yeah good clarification, much more on the effects of way too much salt. But i did mention to do it slowly so you should start seeing when it gets past 1.025.

 

[stoneriff]

Thank you for the good advice. I really appreciate it. I still haven't got an answer though, to roughly how much salt in measure. ie, 1 cup per gallon, etc. Thank you. Jesse.

 

[KathyC]

An old Instant Ocean bucket that I have says 1/2 cup per 1 g of water...you can use that as a guide but err on the light side since not all salt mixes are the same

 

[Killerdrgn]

Oh hahaha, I guess we all overthought the question!

 

[meschaefer]

It doesn't say on the bucket?

 

[KathyC]

Oddly enough Matt..no they don't. My new Coralife salt needed to be opened to find the slip of paper inside with instructions on it..:splitspin

 

[masterswimmer]

Use only 3/4 full tub of RO/DI water and then start adding salt. Get it close enough. If you add too much salt, you'll still have enough room in the mixing tub to add more fresh water to dilute the salt. Then inch up to the 1.025-1.0265 reading you want to get.

If you fill the tub with water, you won't have any room to make adjustments.

swimmer