bad salt?

[andrewprime1]

I keep a bag of salt out in the garage just in case I ever need to do an emergency water change. Today I went to make some water because I don't want to go down to the LFS,m and the salt was clumpy and wet from humidity. Is this ok to use?

 

[surgeonfishbarb]

Yes the salt is fine to use. I would avoid keeping salt in the basement from now on though.

 

[dwd5813]

check your alk and cal levels but otherwise it should be ok.

 

[oldsaltman]

Make sure to seal the container completely to eliminate this problem in the future. You can also add a cup or two of rice placed in a small piece of pantyhose or something similar material to absorb any excess moisture. I had that happen with my first 5g of salt, but after I added the rice I never had a problem again.

 

[andrewprime1]

thanks guys

 

[Whys]

I don't know how much moister made it into your salt, but it may have been compromised and you should be careful about using it. Here is a good explanation as to why.

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14290473#post14290473 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by xJake
Basically salt mixes contain three major ingredients -in terms of what you need to worry about in this scenario. Sodium chloride (obviously), calcium chloride, and sodium carbonate (along with several other "buffer" salts; which behave similarly) make up the large majority of our artificial salt. When this mix is exposed to moisture (water), the bonds between the molecules of calcium, sodium, chloride, and carbonate are all broken and bond with the water molecules instead of with each other. When this water evaporates, the separated molecules don't simply go back to being their original salts. Instead, the calcium and carbonate molecules bond to form calcium carbonate, a.k.a. coral skeleton, aragonite, or limestone (which has extremely low solubility in water), and sodium chloride (salt).

So, where does this leave you? Essentially, when you spill/drip/splash/etc. water into your salt mix, the water quickly evaporates and leaves you with a nice mix of powdered aragonite and table salt - completely useless for making chemically-balanced artificial seawater.

The lesson: Keep your salt mix away from moisture, or you're basically wasting your money (and causing yourself a lot of headaches).