So you are able just to mix mortan salt to tap for sea water?
IO dry salt isn't made from real sea water is it?
Reason I ask is I get a rash from the mix salts but not from sea water.
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- Thread starter MellowReefer
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So you are able just to mix mortan salt to tap for sea water?
IO dry salt isn't made from real sea water is it?
Reason I ask is I get a rash from the mix salts but not from sea water.
EnderTurtle
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The sneak peek tour guide will answer any questions related to the operation of the aquarium. He also has hilarious work stories to tell 
Their skimmers are huuuuuuuuuuge!
Their skimmers are huuuuuuuuuuge!
IO is an artificial mix. There is no sea salt added. I get a rash from ASW mixes as well.
The Motrons we get and use is not table salt. It lacks the caking agents and is higher purity. You cannot just add it to tap to get true saltwater. The act of kiln drying, or solar drying, precipitates out magnesium, calcium, etc... so those all have to be added back. We go through pallets of calcium and magnesium every few months.
There are reef salt mixes that are made from evaporated sea water, the D&D one and a Red Sea product are made from it (from Israel).
I wasn't implying that the salt they receive is polluted. I found it ironic though that the salt they use is in fact from the Bay, but don't utilize the water line accessible to the Bay due to various reasons.
I wonder if the drought continues, perhaps with rationing they would be forced to use the bay water?
Do you monitor the phosphate content of the Morton salt? I know it varies batch to batch.
-Mark
DivingTheWorld
Active member
I find it odd that they have a pipe to the Bay and not a pipe to the Ocean. I'm no expert but it seems a lot closer and cleaner? Plus they could just run the pipe through the park instead of through neighborhoods.
Beautiful colors with your corals. Is the red algae macro or cyano? I do know that my incoming water supply here in SF is around 50ppm, which is far below the national average.
Hetch Hetchy has excellent water and my filters last quite a while...
I don't know if you would be representative of the hobby as a whole, especially someone in Arizona where local tap water is 800+ ppm!
-Mark
D-Nak
Active member
IIRC I was told that the pipe was to the ocean, and not the bay. More specifically, it was out past Golden Gate Park near Ocean Beach -- which means it would pull from the ocean. I'm guessing the cost of trying to filter that water is more costly (time and/or expense) than starting from scratch.
DivingTheWorld
Active member
Well that's interesting. It's too bad. That would be cool if they had it set up with maybe a public tap like at UC Santa Barbara? Ok, I need to stop dreaming...
They don't really pull from the Bay.... it goes to the ocean off of GG park IIRC. I say that as I seem to recall discussion about pollution from the golf course.
I highly doubt they'll ever go to using that water.
Yes, we do. We get a work up. Its worth it when you are buying a mass of salt that is 53' long by 8' wide by 4' tall. But for us, we measure the phosphate to know how much more to add... we're growing algae after all :lol:
Touché! It seems that it makes a whole lot more sense to run through GG to get water than the Bay.
-Mark
The pipe goes to Ocean Beach, if you look carefully between the parking lot and the concrete boardwalk about midway between Lincoln and Fulton you can see two metal plates at your feet (you can see them on google maps), these are hatches that open up to a small room below with two large Fybroc pumps inside it. The pumps are drawing water from underneath the sand, one intake goes to the west (towards the ocean) and pulls a mix of ocean water and a bit of freshwater intruding from SF's groundwater. The other intake goes east and is an effort to lower the groundwater in the immediate vicinity to keep it from intruding.
There were a few reasons using this water sucked.
1) Salinity varies but was always lower than NSW and needed "brining" or raising it with a salt mix.
2) Phosphate and ammonia were frequently problems (a water treatment plant is just south of Ocean Beach, near where the Great Highway meets Lake Merced).
3) Using this water requires running the pumps 24/7, and the pumps have a minimum setting, so a constant stream of ocean water has to be delivered to CAS 24/7 whether it gets used or not. The vast majority did not get used and had to be diverted to sewer, which costs money. This is horribly inefficient, obviously.
The first switch from ocean beach water was to IO and carbon filtered SF city water. That works fine but there is a cheaper way, making your own mix using quality ingredients. IIRC the cost went from 11 cents a gallon to 7 cents a gallon doing this, but it's been 4 years since I crunched the numbers. NaCl comes from Morton, minus anti-caking agents and such, MgCl and MgSO4 come from Skyline in LA, CaCl2 comes from Cal-Chlor in Michigan, KCl comes from Brenntag Pacific in Richmond, NaHCO3 comes from Arm & Hammer ( pallets of 50# sacks from a cattle feed store in Petaluma), B and Sr come from a chemical supply house, etc etc. There are lots of other trace elements too. Got any more questions, let me know.
There were a few reasons using this water sucked.
1) Salinity varies but was always lower than NSW and needed "brining" or raising it with a salt mix.
2) Phosphate and ammonia were frequently problems (a water treatment plant is just south of Ocean Beach, near where the Great Highway meets Lake Merced).
3) Using this water requires running the pumps 24/7, and the pumps have a minimum setting, so a constant stream of ocean water has to be delivered to CAS 24/7 whether it gets used or not. The vast majority did not get used and had to be diverted to sewer, which costs money. This is horribly inefficient, obviously.
The first switch from ocean beach water was to IO and carbon filtered SF city water. That works fine but there is a cheaper way, making your own mix using quality ingredients. IIRC the cost went from 11 cents a gallon to 7 cents a gallon doing this, but it's been 4 years since I crunched the numbers. NaCl comes from Morton, minus anti-caking agents and such, MgCl and MgSO4 come from Skyline in LA, CaCl2 comes from Cal-Chlor in Michigan, KCl comes from Brenntag Pacific in Richmond, NaHCO3 comes from Arm & Hammer ( pallets of 50# sacks from a cattle feed store in Petaluma), B and Sr come from a chemical supply house, etc etc. There are lots of other trace elements too. Got any more questions, let me know.
BAM! There's some good info!
Thanks for the clarification. Very interesting as well...too bad the system has so many drawbacks.
Do you know when they originally installed this system? Was it part of the master plan from the beginning? Also, when did they end its use?
-Mark
