Aerate instant ocean reef crystals salt mix..?

[Kona26]

I have jumped back into the game after about 10 years. I have a 13.5 gal tank. I use a 3.5g jug to mix my salt in. My question is ( i have seen it asked by not for specific salt mix ) is anyone aerating their salt mix..? When I had my 350gal tank back in the day I only used a 55g bin and power heads to mix my salt....no issues. I am seeing on the side of the bucket that they recommended aerating to achieve oxygen / carbon dioxide equilibrium. Up until now I have only used a pump in my mixing container and ran it to 1.025 - 1.026. I through in a air pump after seeing this on the bucket and let it run for a day and a half. Tested the same water and it tested at 1.030. Pump is at the bottom of the container....everything was mixed before hand for days. Is adding aeration increasing my salinity..? Or is this a one off and maybe something happened. I have never put a air stone in my mixing tank before so I have nothing to go off of. Also how would you test for equilibrium..?

 

[kharmaguru]

I have jumped back into the game after about 10 years. I have a 13.5 gal tank. I use a 3.5g jug to mix my salt in. My question is ( i have seen it asked by not for specific salt mix ) is anyone aerating their salt mix..? When I had my 350gal tank back in the day I only used a 55g bin and power heads to mix my salt....no issues. I am seeing on the side of the bucket that they recommended aerating to achieve oxygen / carbon dioxide equilibrium. Up until now I have only used a pump in my mixing container and ran it to 1.025 - 1.026. I through in a air pump after seeing this on the bucket and let it run for a day and a half. Tested the same water and it tested at 1.030. Pump is at the bottom of the container....everything was mixed before hand for days. Is adding aeration increasing my salinity..? Or is this a one off and maybe something happened. I have never put a air stone in my mixing tank before so I have nothing to go off of. Also how would you test for equilibrium..?

All air exchange happens at the surface so a power head will do the exact same thing as an air pump as long as the surface is moving.. The only way your salinity could increase is if you had evaporation or some sort of testing error.

 

[Kona26]

Gotcha.....yeah that's what I thought. I was skeptical about the salinity jump.....but it was right in line with the air stone instalation.

 

[griss]

Welcome back. I use a 5 gallon bucket to mix for WCs. I put a powerhead and heater in with the RODI and let it warm up, then add salt.