Crazed

Hey all, I added salt mix to my tank last night. I added it directly since it's the first time, and to make the saltwater in my 5 gallon buckets wouldhave taken forever.

Anyway, I poured 15.4 pounds of Coral Pro Salt into my 70 gallon Oceanic Tech Tank. 15.4 pounds is what the mixing instructions call for for 55 gallons. I added less
1) to be on the safe side
2) because I didn't want to fill up my overflow yet, since I felt it wouldn't mix in that stagnant area (my sump is not running yet). I figured the volume of the tank, minus the overflow, was at least 55 gallons. (

Now, after 18 hours with two Koralia 3 powerheads mixing it up (as well as my own occasional stirring with an algae scraper), it's generally clear. However, there is still some salt on the bottom, undissolved. It's not much, but it's there. The salinity is only at 1.023, so I don't think the water is saturated... yet, I can't get it to dissolve. I took out about 3 gallons of water and replaced it with freshwater, which brought the salinity to 1.022. Still no change in the undissolved salt.

Do I have to keep mixing it for more time, remove the salt manually, or what? I don't think it's a bad batch of salt; I'm mixing some salt in a 5 gallon bucket for a couple hours now and that is totally dissolved. I also threw in another powerhead, a Maxi-Jet 600, into the main tank a couple minutes ago.

Additionally, last night, when I shone a light at the top of the tank, looking down, it looked like there was a film of tiny particles on the top. Most of it is gone today. Is this a normal effect of the dissolution process?

Thanks!

PS: After I get this undissolved salt problem fixed, I'm probably going to add more salt to get it up to 1.023.

cerianthus

Wouldnt worry too much. Try to position one of pH toward the top to agitate the surface. If possible to hook up mechanical fiter to pH, do so. If not, that's ok too.
No need to adjust SG yet until ready to add LR and/or Livestocks.
Will this be Reef/FOWLR/FO?

Do you have substrate in the tank?
If so, anion released from certain substrate can bond with cation from salt and/or vice versa, to form solids which can precipitate as white crusts.

Crazed

It's going to be Reef now. I'm going to start out with fish and some small, soft corals.

Not yet, but I've bought it already. Right now, it's totally empty aside from two heaters and the three powerheads (two permanent ones).


It's still undissolved there at the bottom, now about a full 24 hours after it was added. I got a turkey baster and I'm going to try to agitate it directly a bit more, and move the powerheads around a bit. What should I do if it doesn't go away?

Also, for the filter, I'm going to try to get the sump working within the next day, which has a sponge and protein skimmer.

cerianthus

If it looks like white film/thin layer of white crust on the bottom of tank, would not worry., provided tank was well cleaned prior to setting up.
If worried, siphon out to bucket and see if dissolves in bucket. If it does, pour it back.
If not, gently pour most of water into tank and throw out the remaining small amt of water w/ white crusts.

Sump sounds good. Just think about how equipments are laid out in sump.
Make sure the return water(skimmed water/clean water)from skimmer does not go back to skimmer but are returned to return pump chamber (back to tank).

Good Luck!