salt buliding up into clumps?

[sdreefer69]

Hello everyone, I am relatively new to this hobby and just have a quick question about mixing my own salt water. thanks a bunch in advance if you can help me out.

I have just started mixing my own water at home thanks to my new water purifier. First I picked up some instant ocean, I liked well but had no trace elements I was told. So my local fish store suggested i pick up a bag of oceanic brand salt. He spoke highly of it, so i went with his word and bought it.

When I opened and measured out the salt for the first time with the oceanic, it mixed up very well just like the instant ocean.

But, I went into the salt bag today to mix some new salt water and found most of the top layer of salt got hard and clumped together.

I broke the large chunks into reasonable, measurable pieces and put it in the barrel of water to mix.

But for some reason today the new salt water isn't coming out super clear like before.

Any suggestions, did my bag of salt get wet and now its not good or something. please help. thank you
-Bryan

[Palting]

Ouch. The crystalized salt, the clumps in the bag, have lost their "potency", or now has different chemical characteristics. I would junk it. Next time, keep all unused salt in an airtight container, and make sure your scoop or measuring tool remains bone dry when you stick it in the salt.

[Dwyer]

I notice that mine does that if I don't seal the lid good enough on my 5 gallon buckets.
I think it sucks the moisture out of the air and clumps the salt. I took a baseball bat and just hammered it down with the end to loosen up all the clumps again. I had a really thick crust one day. This works like a charm.

[reefergeorge]

Paltin is probably right, but I use mine clumped up all the time.

[Dustin1300]

I would guess the crystalized salt is only clumpy because it got moisture from the humidity of where you have stored. I always close buckets as soon as I dip out the salt as I've ran into the same problem. I've not ran into a problem with it being clear or having a different composition.

Where did you store the salt? Is it in a dirty environment such as shop/garage with lots of sawdust/dust/etc???

[webos]

I only get a 10 gallon box for my water changes what i don't use I put in a zip lock bag.