// you’re reading...

General Reef

just FYI

Makin’ some little changes - layout on the posts and what not will be a bit off kilter, if not completely unbearable ;), ... haven’t done any browser testing … sorry if it’s your first time here! Working on it though...!

AWT’s Synthetic Salt Analysis…

By admin ⋅ February 11, 2008 ⋅ Email This Post Email This Post ⋅ Print This Post Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

I haven’t yet had a chance to mail in a sample of my water to AWT (aquariumwatertesting.com), but will be doing so shortly. However, of interest to anyone keeping a reef, AWT recently tested a whole slew of different salt brands, and their results can be found here. Very interesting, I’m now really looking forward to getting mine done, as it seems Reef Crystals is indeed inherently low in a couple parameters that I suspected…

And on another note to anyone keeping reefs, here’s a short video clip by Glassbox Design… a couple quick tips on making your tank look sharp… get those frag racks out of the main display!

Print This PostTags: , ,

Discussion

3 comments for “AWT’s Synthetic Salt Analysis…”

  1. after reading the the results of their salt analysis, i really don’t know what the hell to think… rather than mixing to a standard salinity, they took a certain weight (see page 4, 7 grams to 200mL water) and mixed it up… most reef keepers I know keep tanks 33 - 35 ppt, why not choose a salinity, be it 33 or 36, whatever, and mix each salt up to that. It almost seems lazy to me… but if they took the time to test all the parameters, it certainly couldn’t have taken much longer to measure out how much salt mix is needed per, say, 5 gallons, to reach “X” ppt. I don’t really understand the reasoning behind it… who mixes only 7 grams at a time? drug dealers? Why not make a full gallon of water? Who makes less than a gallon, seriously? 200 mL?

    I certainly applaud AWT’s efforts on making this kind of study available, but I don’t get the reasoning behind testing the salts at different salinities.

    Look at the older Inland Reef Aquaria salt studies - here is what they did, and I think this is the proper way to have gone about it:

    The salts were mixed with RO/DI water to a concentration of 35 ppt, as measured with a calibrated refractometer.

    Several samples were obtained from each bag, from various positions within the bag, to minimize the effects of settling.

    To test yield, we measured the dry weight of each salt mix required to produce a given amount of salt water at a concentration of 35 ppt. To keep moisture accumulation to a minimum, the length of time each dry sample was exposed to the air was minimized and all dry samples were handled in an identical manner. After all the salt solutions were mixed, the salinity was tested with a calibrated refractometer. The wet samples were then allowed 24 hours to fully dissolve before re-testing and, if needed, adjusting the salinity to 35 ppt. The table below shows the amount of dry sample used, the volume of salt water produced, and the actual yield from a 50 gallon bag (or equivalent portion) of each salt:

    Posted by admin | February 12, 2008, 4:29 pm

  2. Good post, Stony!

    Posted by jeffry r. johnston | February 13, 2008, 3:20 pm

  3. Dang, they didnt do a study on OceanPure. Maybe on the next one

    Posted by Chehaliscoral | February 13, 2008, 7:05 pm

Post a comment

Reef Aquarium Index