Where to buy bulk salt?

[anothermineral]

Folks,

Does anyone know / have any info on where to buy bulk salt in the Northeast? I'm talking about large dog food bag sizes or even pallets. I realize shipping product in these sizes is probably cost prohibitive, however, I personally would be willing to travel a little bit in order to save $$$ on this most necessary consumable.

If you look at the price breaks between a 50G bag as opposed to a 200G bucket in your LFS, I have to believe that a similar price break if not greater would be realized by purchasing much larger volumes.

Thanks

 

[Billybeau1]

Synthetic sea salt is sold in bulk to many large city aquariums around the US.

I suspect if you are serious about buying in bulk, you could probably contact the manufacturer of the salt mix you prefer and inquire about this.

If you use a lot of salt, you may get a response. If you are just trying to save a buck, I doubt they will deal with you.

 

[anothermineral]

In my web searching I found that Customaquatic.com will drop ship from the manufacturer, 1100# and 2200# bags of Red Sea Salt for for $630 and $1100 respectively.

There's also an additional shipping charge based on your location.

This would be an ~ 30-40% savings over buying 50G bags or 160-200G buckets. However, a ton of salt may be a little much to store.

I estimate you could make ~ 3600G of 1.025 water from the 1100# bag.

 

[05TurboS2K]

Lets see.... i have a 85gal setup.

That'll last me a while. $630 bucks and not worry about salt again for 360 10gal water changes. That'll be a few years, I could even split it between 5 friends, now were talking that'd be 72 water 10gal changes.

72 10 gallon water changes or however you want to break it up. I figure splitting that 5 ways= $126 not a bad deal.

Just for ****s `n giggles.

 

[Bebo77]

best to just stock up when Drs is having a discount shipping promotion...

 

[SPStoner]

Don't forget those bulk sizes are meant o be used all at one time by public aquariums and zoos. I can see a few potential issues for you. First, they are not your typical "resealable" nbags. Moisture would be a huge problem. Second, just getting it off the semi truck at your house would be problematic unless you have a forklift.

Last, I am pretty sure there is some serious settling of the ingredients in these bulk sizes. As I said, they are iontended to be used all at once, so that would not be an issue. But, if you are going to attempt to use a little at a time, this also could pose big problems. There is a reason LFS don't use these bulk sizes, even the very large stores. They typically sue the same pails we do, or some manufacturers make 200 gallon store use boxes in plain brown boxes. These are not for resale and I have seen some retailers get cut off for attempting to re-sell these.

I think your best bet would be to contact a vendor to see if you ordered a pallet of pails, what kind of price break you could get on that.

HTH

 

[SPStoner]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11589027#post11589027 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by 05TurboS2K
Lets see.... i have a 85gal setup.

That'll last me a while. $630 bucks and not worry about salt again for 360 10gal water changes. That'll be a few years, I could even split it between 5 friends, now were talking that'd be 72 water 10gal changes.

72 10 gallon water changes or however you want to break it up. I figure splitting that 5 ways= $126 not a bad deal.

Just for ****s `n giggles.

In 3 years, those huge bulk sizes would be solid rock, IMO. Good luck, though.

 

[Mr. Ugly]

 

[anothermineral]

I'm not advocating purchasing in those sizes, just answering my own question regarding options for bulk salt purchases.

With those of us that have 500+ G systems, water changes are a real cost. I go through at least 6 buckets of salt per year. If I could cut my costs by a third, it would be worth it to me.

 

[OceansWonders]

"6 buckets of salt per year"

That’s a tiny amount of salt to a manufacture or even a distributor there going to want to sell it at least by the pallet which is about 36 buckets or in your case about 6 years worth. I would stick with the $35 per bucket as needed.
I don' think the water change is the real cost... the electricty is the real cost.

 

[anothermineral]

Well folks, I guess if I had your money I'd burn mine. I personally try to be cost conscience in all aspect of the hobby.

Sorry for trying to spark a conversation on saving money.

 

[ReefNAZOut]

Dont be sorry people have already told you to try and buy a pallet, I can get you a pallet of aqua medic salt for 55 dollars a 240 gal bucket. There are 36 buckets to a pallet. That is also with shipping.

 

[OceansWonders]

You can get Oceanic salt at $39.99 a 200 galllon bucket for as many as you can buy with a max shipping at $17.99 for as many truck loads as you want from Drs F&S. Were just trying to point out what many already have looked into.

 

[cthetoy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11588479#post11588479 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by anothermineral
In my web searching I found that Customaquatic.com will drop ship from the manufacturer, 1100# and 2200# bags of Red Sea Salt for for $630 and $1100 respectively.

There's also an additional shipping charge based on your location.

This would be an ~ 30-40% savings over buying 50G bags or 160-200G buckets. However, a ton of salt may be a little much to store.

I estimate you could make ~ 3600G of 1.025 water from the 1100# bag.

You can get 22 buckets (3600 gallons) of Instant Ocean salt from Fostersmith for $650.98 and shipping is only $17.99 anywhere in the lower 48 states for a total of $668.97. Fostersmith don't add surcharges to salt. I just ordered 5 buckets last week

 

[fatrip]

that is interesting that you use so little salt. i use almost 4 buckets a year and im only at 100g. mr ugly, you use that much salt...that is amazing, wish i had a system to use it in...lol..now how many #'s is that bag???

 

[sjfishguy]

Last time I was at the Hidden Reef they had BIG bags of tropic marin (looked like they made 500gals). Didn't look at the price, but I am sure there is some savings. There salt in general is the cheapest you can get anywhere. www.thehiddenreef.com Its right north of Philly off 95. Give them a call, see what they say.