Instant Ocean Salt

Temp can be a contributing factor, but if you mix according to their instructions, you will always end up on the low side. I would recommend to mix in salt, then measure, repeat until correct.   This applies to all brands.

--AJ

 

FWIW I usually end up dumping about and extra 1/4-ish cup into my little 5 gallon bucket when mixing water for a total of 2 3/4 cups of salts to the 5 gallons of water.

 

Sometimes the ingredients arent always mixed as well either. The bottom of the bucket might be higher.

 

1.025 - 1.027

 

Saliniity will rise over the course of hours, depending upon the amount you have mixed. If you have stored the water, make sure you aerate it before adding to your DT.

 

I like to mix up about 20 gallons at a time for water changes on one of my two tanks. I keep my reef tank at about 1.025 but my seahorse tank lower at about 1.022. I use a temperature compensating refractometer and do a "rough" check a couple hours after I first added, then adjust accordingly. I wait AT LEAST a day before adding freshly mixed saltwater and I suggest you do the same.

I am very disappointed in my Instant Ocean sea salt recently. I cannot for the life of me keep my calcium levels high enough, so I decided to test the mixed salt's calcium level and it's only 320ppm. I usually buy reef crystals, but I decided to buy at PetSmart and use their price match guarantee and they only had Instant Ocean. Definitely never buying it again, very disappointed.

 

I would also like to know this. My brother still works at the plastic place I got my mixing tank now from and I might have him get me a much larger tank soon. I wanted to mix up enough water up for a month or two, but didn't know if it would have a "mini-cycle" if it was sitting there for very long.

 

IMHO I do not believe there is a shelf life on saltwater. I have never heard from anyone saying their water went bad. No mini-cycle should occur since there should be no contamination. I keep about 100 gals of RO/DI saltwater on hand at all times. I store it in Rubbermaid 'Brute' containers (found at Lowe's, etc) with a heater and small pump for aeration(of course cover with lid). You never know when you might need to do a larger water change. Running a small pump 24/7 doesn't consume much energy.

 

Posted By tony_s on 11/16/2009 11:36 AM
Hello all,
I was mixing my first batch of water using Instant Ocean sea salt. And the instructions read to use 1/2 cup per gallon of water. When I did this it seemed that the specific gravity was actually quite low. I didnt have the water quite up to temp, does that mke a big difference? I was also wondering if anybody else using Instant Ocean has noticed that the instructions have a low SG. My question is does anybody else use Instant Ocean and how much salt per gallon do you use and what specific gravity does your method achieve?
Thanks,
Tony
If I remember IO/RC mixes @ around 1.022 as per the instructions...most likely to help them boast 160 gallons from the bucket.
I run @ 1.0264/35...although I haven't read much in the way of evidence of 1.023 being better/worse than 1.026...key is stability but opinions do vary.
-Eric