How much salt does a water conditioner add?

[Matak]

That's about the breadth of my question. BTW, my water ranges from 13 degrees to 17 degrees.

[Richer]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I'm going to move this to General Freshwater. Someone there is bound to know =)

-Richer

[morleyz]

It doesn't add salt in a sense...It exchanges 2 sodium ions for Magnesium and Calcium ions which don't precipitate out as easily and don't react with soap.

[O-man21]

can't help ya, I think they don't add any to it IMO

[wetmanNY]

When you look at the list of ingredients of any conditioning potion you're adding to your water and read "Essential electrolytes"-- that's salt. Of course the "amount" isn't available. Nor do we know how much you are adding to what volume of water.

Electrolytes are "essential" only in that fish can't survive in distilled water. They need some dissolved salts ("el;ectrolytes")-- but a cupful of hard tapwater in 20 gallons of distilled would be prefectly adequate for breeding softwater fishes.

What is the "condition" that you're "conditioning" with "conditioners" by the way?

[O-man21]

does it really matter that much tho? it not like you add a ton of it to a fish tank

[aquariaddictus]

By 'conditioning' do you mean 'softening'? If so, the number of sodium ions (not salt) will be directly related to the Calcium and Magnesium concentrations in the original water, which you would have to know in order to calculate the sodium. Then you could figure it out based on the two for one exchange mentioned by Morleyz.

[famman]

In other words, take KH and GH from water before softening, and compare to KH and GH AFTER conditioning and calculate the 'salt' added based on softening need?
my head hurts
:)

[TheMightyQueenPixie]

Try this link...It explains the process in plain english. http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0003401A-597A-1C72-9EB7809EC588F2D7&catID=3