Cloudy Make-up water

[notorious_reb]

I added PH buffer too quickly after mixing in the salt to my make-up water. The water is clouded up (as advertised when you combine the buffer with a calcium additive). I havnt made this mistake before and would hate to scrap 20 gallons of RODI water....can i simply remove half of the water and replace it with 10 gallons of fresh RODI water? Or will this just result in the scrapping of 30 gallons of water?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I'd just let it settle and use it. You precipitated calcium carbonate, which made a small drop in calcium and alkalinity. You can measure it once settled to see how bad it is, but it is likely OK to use.

FWIW, there is almost never a reason to add pH buffers to new salt water. Nearly all have plenty of alkalinity, and the pH is not well boosted by buffers.