How hard is it to make your own salt?

[psilentchild]

I'm looking for the best option on salt for a 6k shark pound.I read about just recycle my old water and also read about making my own salt but I know nothing about it.Could someone give me some information on it?

 

[disc1]

It's generally not cost effective unless you have a factory sized operation. It also requires a lot of work grinding and mixing the salts. Plus a lot of the trace elements are not so easy for the general public to come by. If you want to get your mix right, you will have to use high purity reagents which will be prohibitively expensive. Randy has a recipe, I'm sure he'll put it up here for you. I remember your other post, and I think your smartest option would be to look for wholesale deals on pallets of salt.

 

[psilentchild]

It looks that way.I'm going to call instant ocean tomorrow.

 

[2thdeekay]

Agree with disc1. Don't know where you are, but NSW may be another cost effective option depending on logistics.

 

[bertoni]

I agree that it's not likely to be cost-effective, but it could be done. This article has a recipe:

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/rhf/index.php

 

[HighlandReefer]

Buy your salt mix by the pallet or several pallets at a time. You may be able to combine orders with a lfs as well.

 

[psilentchild]

What does NSW stand for?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Natural seawater or natural salt water.

 

[disc1]

Means getting water from the ocean.

 

[billsreef]

Fritz also sells a trace element mix for adding to solar salt in order to make SW. Might work out a bit cheaper if you have a good source for plain solar salt (no anti caking agents added).

 

[gendiaaa]

Please I wanna ask about something I wanna cure life rock and the reef salt
Here is so expensive so I wanna cheap way for salt mix only for curing so I have
A solar salt company here taking water from sea and make normal salt is this will
Do the job only for curing ???

 

[billsreef]

You would need a good trace element mix that is meant for combining with straight up NaCl to make a proper seawater mix, such as the one from Fritz that I mentioned. Solar salt on it's own is nearly pure NaCl and therefore mixing all the rest of the elements needed to make seawater. As result, by itself it is not sufficient for supporting marine life, so not usable for curing your live rock.

 

[zachfishman]

Also check with Marine Enterprises International. Better prices than IO and good bulk discounts.

 

[bertoni]

[welcome]

Are you starting with live rock or with dead, dry rock? You can use fresh water to remove any organic debris, but I agree that you'll need a proper salt mix to grow the appropriate bacteria. Solar salt isn't going to be useful, unfortunately, for the reasons stated.