Brown gunk in salt water mixing container?

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ThatNewFishGuy

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May 4, 2010
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Im wondering if anyone else experienced this. I have a 30 gal grey brute food safe can I use to mix my salt water. Nothing besides RO/DI water, salt mix, and a submerisble pump goes into this container. I just happened to open my container during the day. Salt water had been mixing in this since a day prior. In the daylight I noticed that the bottom had a brown filmy substance. I thought at first it might be something coming off the pump so I took it apart but found nothing like that on the inside. Any ideas?
 

tanker

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Brown diatom algae??
 

Ace25

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It is calcium precipitation and happens with almost every salt (only salt I never had that issue with was B-Ionic). Reef Crystals/Instant Ocean is probably the worst offenders. Also it happens more if you use a heater in the mixing container and leave it heated. Ideally you would mix it cold to correct salinity, then heat to tank temperature when you plan on using it. The more you leave it heated the more it will precipitate. I have never had any issues with salinity changing between cold and warm water as the cold is usually within 10 degrees of warm.
 

greech

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Agreed it is nothing to worry about.

RC and IO is awful when it comes to this. However, I'm not sure the brown slime is actually precipitate. No matter how slow I mixed my RC, it still happened for me. I also had precipitate chunks in the bottom of my container in addition to the brown slime. I stopped using RC and went to Brightwells. No more slime and almost no precipitate. Brightwells mixes much better and is more accurate. A half cup is actually 1.025. Not saying Brightwells is a better salt, it just mixes a heck of a lot better :).

Whatever you do don't heat the water. At least not initially as Ace mentioned.
 

ThatNewFishGuy

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Ok that's a relief. Funny you mentioned Rc and io as the worst offenders because Rc is the one I'm using. Ive been considering giving a different salt a try. Someone at my lfs said that with tropicmarine I wouldn't really have to worry about dozing kalk if my tank isn't sps dominated

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TL1000RSquid

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I'm using Red Sea Pro currently, if it sits for more then a day I get a little build up on the walls of the container and on my pump but no chunks or anything on the bottom. I've used Coralife and Kent in the past which both may of been a little worse but not to bad.
 

ThatNewFishGuy

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May 4, 2010
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I'm using Red Sea Pro currently, if it sits for more then a day I get a little build up on the walls of the container and on my pump but no chunks or anything on the bottom. I've used Coralife and Kent in the past which both may of been a little worse but not to bad.

Been wanting to give RS pro a shot as well, BRS seems to stand by that one atleast.
 
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