A General Guide to Salt Mixes

I know what you mean Capn. Long threads can be a PITA to get through.

But t is what it is. We will learn to deal with it, I'm sure. :D

BTW, just ordered some Coralife. Curious to see if they dropped their calcium level a bit like some have reported. Should be here in a few days. I'll get the new numbers up when it arrives. I want to retest Oceanic too but the place I ordered from no longer carries it.

I'm going to try and update as many of these salts as I can in 2010. :)
 
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I don't know not having splits might help. I don't know how many times people said they read the whole only to find out they missed the first 2 splits. For those that want to read, I think this is better. I don't think there is much help for the lazy or those that want quick answers. I think they might be in the wrong hobby:)
 
You may be right Fishman.

Have you ever tried getting through one of Randy's articles ? :spin2:

I have to print them out on paper to read them so I can comprehend the content in most cases. :D
 
Another benefit from skipping the splits is that it gets easier to search in a thread, for example if you want to read everything about tunze's salt in this thread, now you have to search in 3 different threads instead of just one.
 
I suspect a bad kh test kit. No salt mix I've tested to date has alkalinity that high out of the bucket.

Maybe pick up a cheap API kh kit and compare results.

I'm curious, what does your tank test at for kh with the same kit ?

Now I've picked up a new Salifert KH test kit. The old kit tested my tank water at 8 dKH and the new Salifert at 8,6 dKH so I'm still a bit confused, gonna test some newly mixed saltwater in a day or two to see what the Salifert kit says about it.
 
I got quite strange results when testing my Red Sea Coral Pro, Ca 480 ppm, Mg 1320 ppm and KH 14° at 35 psu. Calcium and magnesium was tested with Salifert kits, KH with a Fauna Marin kit and salinity with a refractometer. The KH test was repeated, twice, with a thorough reading of the instructions in between.

Any thoughts?

I have now redone all tests, this time with a new Salifert Alkalinity test. I was aiming for 35 psu as usual but apparently added a bit too much salt so all readings are done with a salinity of 36 psu. Ca 465 ppm, Mg 1350 ppm and KH 14,7°.

Now I'm convinced that the results are in the correct range, that my KH is about twice the expected. My question then is whether it will be in that throughout the entire bucket or if it will get really low in the bottom of the bucket?
 
Add 4 ml water with a 5 ml syringe to the measuring tube, add 2 drops of the green stuff, then fill the 1 ml syringe with the plastic tip from the large bottle. Filling it means draw the piston so that the part of the black rubber thing that is closest to the tip of the syringe is in line with the 1 ml mark.

Then I putted 0,4 ml into the measuring tube (so that the piston stopped at 0,6 ml mark), swirled it for 10 seconds. Then continued to add one drop at a time swirling the tube for about 1 second between each drop, when the piston was somewhere between the 0,1 ml and 0,2 ml mark I first saw a purple color for a fraction of a second and at 0,1 ml I saw a pink color for a few seconds before turning purple. At 0,08 ml it stayed pink.

EDIT: I did the same thing with the Alkalinity Check Solution just to make sure I wasn't doing anything really wrong. I got the result 7,4 dKH.
 
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Just redid the test, more to test the repeatability of the test kit than any other reason. I did exactly the same way except that a added 0,8 ml at once before starting to add drop by drop. The result was almost exactly the same :celeb1: 0,07 ml left in the syringe which means 14,7-15,0 dKH.
 
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If I understand the question correctly, then yes. To clarify further, this is how I read a syringe.
 

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Well, I trust you are using the Salifert kit correctly. But I find it unusual that a bucket of RSCP has that much alkalinity. That is even higher than IO and RC.

If you've mixed the bucket real good, then I guess it is what it is. At least you wont have to supplement alk for awhile :D

I'd be surprised if all RSCP buckets are that high, even if they changed their formula.

One note. I have never seen my Salifert alk kit turn purple. It pretty much goes from blue to orange with a single drop of the syringe. Make sure you are using proper lighting to ensure you can see the color change and swirl for a few seconds after each drop. It may be happening sooner than you think. :)
 
Quick question on testing. This is general for all test kits. I use ELOS test kits. If I test alk, and I know the DKH is higher than 7 DKH. Each drop of the reagent = 0.5 DKH. Can I drop 14 drops of the reagent in and then swirl for a little bit and then drop in incriments of 1 drop?
 
Quick question on testing. This is general for all test kits. I use ELOS test kits. If I test alk, and I know the DKH is higher than 7 DKH. Each drop of the reagent = 0.5 DKH. Can I drop 14 drops of the reagent in and then swirl for a little bit and then drop in incriments of 1 drop?

Both API and Salifert say you can do it in their instructions.
 
My bad, the API Calcium test kit instructions do specitfy you can do multiple drops, but the KH/Carbonate Hardness does not.
 
With all alkalinity and calcium and magnesium kits, you can drop in a lot of fluid up to just before you expect the endpoint, and then go slowly. :)
 
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