Source for DIY salt mix ingredients?

[UVvis]

It's also possible that the bulk of it is coming in from certain types of food (macroalgae perhaps), and in smaller hobbyist sized systems it is building up to higher concentrations than you guys see it in your big exhibits, or you aren't feeding those types of food to begin with...(???)...all just guesses of course.

Some marine planktonic feeders like krill will sometimes have high copper counts, especially with the farm raised for fish food varieties. It varies lot to lot, so you can't really pin it down. Food and environmental additions like exposed corroded copper wire/pipe are more likely to contribute toxic heavy metals than from the salt blend.

 

[UVvis]

this is where I got this formula from ...

NUTRITION AND METABOLISM OF MARINE BACTERIA'
http://jb.asm.org/cgi/reprint/85/6/1413.pdf

have seen it in some other papers as well .. . I have no Idea if they just used that as a cheap alternative for these experiment or ....

Gotcha,

Quick scan without reading looks like they were more concerned with major cation balance than having a blend that mimics seawater.

 

[tanan]

Hey.
Since I have to pay about 120usd for a 200G instant ocean bucket here. I am looking into making my salt mix too.
I have access to sea salt (evaporated salt from sea water), should i use that and test/add for mag, cal and add trace? or should I test for more things?

 

[rayjay]

If you are trying to replicate a commercial salt or NSW, you wouldn't be able to test for many aspects of what you have unless you have access to a suitably equipped laboratory.
The mix I use (in post 6 above, worked out with Randy many years ago) was almost always used 50/50 with instant ocean salt. Occasionally for one of my fish only tanks I would use 100% of it but in a reef tank only 50/50.
To use a formulae 100%, I'd not do any less than Frank Millero's formula from which my formulae just uses the primary ingredients.
I'm not a chemist by any means but I do read often that sea salt will NOT redissolve into it's original mix, once by Randy, so it may not be suitable for your purposes unless you happen to know just what those changes might be and that they won't affect it's use for you.
While I've been using my formulae now for over 20 years, I have had to shut down all my reef tanks and FO tanks and now only have the seahorse tanks left, still using the 50/50 mix.

 

[bertoni]

The evaporated saltwater generally will have lost a lot of elements during the process. Precipitation and the like take their toll. The final product won't be appropriate for use here. The calcium and alkalinity will have combined to form sand, as well. I'll try to find a recipe for artificial saltwater, but it requires some specialty chemicals.

 

[tanan]

Ok. What if I use that sea salt as means of NaCl? It's getting hard to find cheap NaCl from good source here in that quantity.
I would be starting a fresh tank with macro algae and then some zoa/xenia/gsp to test.
If let's say one has access to get the seasalt mixed water tested. What would you guys test it for other than general master kit tests? Copper? Iron? Potassium? Bromide?

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[rayjay]

I wouldn't use the sea salt at all. You have no way to know the makeup of the reconstituted mix so you won't have any idea of what you need to mix it with.
It may also be that the ions it produces could differ each batch.
Do they not use water softeners there? While there are different salts that work in water softeners, the most common one, at least here in Canada, is NaCl.
The only problem with it is that a lot of the sodium chloride ones have additives in them for one reason or another so you have to find one that doesn't have any additives and is basically just sodium chloride. Even at that it will have some trace elements in it but I've been using it now for about 20 years or so.
Originally I used rock salt, but it became hard to find so I made the switch to water softener salt and it worked well for me as it wasn't a dirty salt like the rock salt was.
Here in Canada, the Windsor Select Plus water softener salt I use is under $7 Canadian for a 20 kilo bag.
I also buy calcium chloride dihydrate, anhydrous sodium sulphate, and magnesium chloride hexahydrate, all in bulk from a chemical supply company here in my city. For the baking soda I just buy here at the grocery stores.

 

[tanan]

Our tap water is pretty soft all across the city. The ones that have brackish wells use RO/DI, since a 6 stage one costs about 100 bucks with uv in it.
We have tons of salt mines and seasalt across the coastal belt so that's what the entire country uses for salt.
I am in Karachi, Pakistan.

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[bertoni]

If the salt is for human consumption, it's probably acceptable as a source for NaCl. You could give it a shot.