Alright, we are finally going to chime in on this thread and we apologize for taking so long.
First and foremost, if anyone ever has trouble with any of our products, please don't hesitate to call or email us regarding the issue. We take these things very seriously and sometimes do not come across these posts for a while, which makes it hard to address the issues at hand. We want our customers to be 100% satisfied and will do everything in our power to make that happen. This is not only our job, but also our passion.
As for the Salinity, it is a little disconcerting that so many of you are having difficulty with the salt. This is the highest quality salt on the market right now and we go to great lengths to achieve that.
The Salinity is not an out sourced salt like other salts on the market, including our Reef and Marine Salts. We batch Salinity right here in our facility in GA in very small batches. This allows for us to have much greater quality control over the salt itself. The elements used in this salt are anhydrous materials, meaning they do not contain unneeded water molecules that can cause variance in the weight of the compound. This is what accounts for its high concentration and the burn that some of you may have experienced as the materials can produce quite a bit of heat when they react with water. Once we have tested the salt in our labs and it meets our standards, we then send it to an EPA registered lab where it gets tested with high quality laboratory grade testing equipment. Those results are printed on a label for each batch and sent back to our facility. Not only do we include the exact numbers that you will find in each bucket, we have also include average numbers from different oceans around the world, in addition to a maximum and a minimum that surround those ocean values. The numbers in each bucket will never fall outside of that min/max range. Furthermore, those numbers are guaranteed at a SALINITY of 35ppt or SG of 1.026, which is determined with a laboratory-grade digital refractometer.
When mixing this salt, we have found that 24 hours or less is ideal. The longer you let the salt mix, the more C02 it will take on and the more precipitation you will encounter. C02 --> water --> carbonic acid --> bicarbonates/carbonates. Mixing the salt for more than 24 hours can cause a decrease in alkalinity and pH, resulting in a precipitation of calcium and carbonates. When we mix it here at Seachem, we mix it in 50 gallon drums with one powerhead at room temperature (22-25 degrees Centigrade). There is no need to use a heater. Typically the water is clear within a few hours but sometimes we have to use it within an hour of mixing, when it is still cloudy. This cloudiness clears rapidly once introduced to the tank, generally within 30 minutes, and will not cause any harm to the inhabitants. Furthermore, cloudiness seems to persist more with buckets that have calcium and alkalinity levels on the higher end of the range. This is really inevitable when you have such high levels of those particular components.
The odor that may be experienced is quite normal. Again, because of the anhydrous materials used in Salinity, it can take on a little moisture from the atmosphere, causing an unpleasant odor not evident in other salts that use hydrous components. Not only that, but we also match the sulfate content of natural sea water, which means we add more sulfates than other salts, giving it an unusual odor.
The residue that is left in the container is a direct result of 1. the highly concentrated materials used in the salt, 2. letting it mix too long 3. a natural occurrence when mixing a high quality salt. We do an acid wash on our buckets about once a month. This can be done at home simply using Acid Buffer and water. Your bucket will be clean instantly and easily.
Those of you that have mentioned losing colonies in your reef tank, I'm terribly sorry to hear that. It is hard to say exactly what may have gone wrong in that instance. Unfortunately, those things can happen for unknown reasons when dealing with a reef tank. I hope that this information has been helpful to you all and please, don't ever hesitate to give us a call when something is wrong. Even when you are getting low numbers on salt, whichever salt of ours that may be, call us and tell us about it and we will look into it. We want you to be successful in the hobby and would never produce a product that would intentionally harm your animals.
Sorry for such a long, elaborate post, but I wanted to be as thorough as possible and hopefully answer all of your questions. Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns. Thanks!
