Live Rock Curing Salt Substitute

[robwsup]

Randy,
I buy/sell about 200-400lbs of live rock a week. Because of this, I am always receiving about the same in uncured rock each week. Besides heavy protein skimming, a large caulerpa sump, and large wet/dry filter, we do many water changes during the curing process.

Even at "wholesale" prices, the cost of salt for several water changes a week is killing me.

Is there a chance that I could use plain water softener salt. I could buffer it with Sodium Bicarbonate, and use CaCl to bring up Alk and Calcium to NSW levels, or not.

I would just be using this to do daily water changes on live rock.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I haven't worked out exact amounts, but yes, you can probaly use a mixture of water softener sodium chloride and Epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) and then calcium and a buffer. :)

[robwsup]

Any idea how much ,in cups, of baking soda, Dowflake, and epsom salts I would need to add, to say 50 gallons of "saltwater" to bring it up to 8dKh, 300ppm Ca, and 1100-1200ppm Mg?

BTW, the 1/2 cup of salt per gallon thumb rule doesn't work on rock (water softener) salt. Apparently, it is much more dense. Using that thumbrule, my water mixed up to about 1.037.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I haven't worked through that yet, no. I don't have the time to do so right now, but maybe for a future article.

Anyone want to tackle that right now?

[grim]

What about "ProLine Super Salt" salt concentrate with locally sourced NaCl? AquaticEco has 4400g worth of concentrate for about 480. Should be a couple hundred bucks cheaper than using the equivalent amount of IO.

jb

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I expect that would be fine, although I do not know much about it. :)

[robwsup]

I've looked into that grim. It would cost about 80% of what it would cost me to do in IO.

Besides, I'm not trying to replicate seawater, I just want something that will be cheap and safe to let liverock sit in while stuff rots on it.

[Hobster]

I tried it with the calculator.

http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/chem_calc3.html

I have know idea what the intial values if any would be so I started with 1 (it does not calculate with a zero starting value)

I used Turbo Calcium, epsom and baking soda for 50 gals.

Cal=31 tsp
Alk=7.5 tsp
Mg=2239 grams

Maybe mix a smaller batch and adjust up or down?

[grim]

What about starting with a 'standard' asw mix and experiment which lower concentration ions you can deal without..

http://marine.rutgers.edu/ebme/html_docs/ASWMEDIA.htm

jb

[seldin]

What about NSW. It's free, except for the transportation and inconvenience? (Obviously, you have to liver near a source.