Mushrooms shriveled

Yeah, same thing I was thinking.

And Dave, please feel free to offer suggestions to mixing my water, I'm all ears bro. As far as I can tell the easiest and best way would be to get a larger cotainer to put all the water in and test it as a batch rather than trying to figure what it will be if I have 15 gallons of salt, and 25 gallons of RO.
 
Get the salinity back up slowly... Fast changes in salinity are more dangerous than gradual changes.

Any particular reason that you don't mix your own saltwater? It's much cheaper than buying it pre-made, and you get to control its quality.
 
No, no reason in particular. With my smaller tank I never felt the need to. But I can see with my larger one I'm going to have to look into alternatives.
 
i dont know about where you are, but around here RO fron the LFS is 50cents per gallon, and premixed salt is a dollar per gallon...

you can get ro water from the culligan machine in walmart for 27 cents, and a 5 gallon bucket of salt is like $40 bucks or so, so......
 
yea, i "haul" my water, and the thing that really sucks about it is that i'm paying too much for something that i know isnt all that great, but its better than i get outta my tap, and i just dont get enough allowance each paycheck to order one...

that'll be ok tho, when she starts seeing charges on the card for the water from the lfs, me thinks that she will find ordering a unit considerably cheaper.. hehehe
 
I have actually thought of getting an RO/DI unit. My issues are that I haven't a clue at what salinity to mix my water at. I've always gone with the understanding that water evaporates, salt does not. Going by that rule I wouldn't want to over dose my system on salt. Anyone who does this themselves that has feedback, suggestions, or instructions I am all ears. I'd rather learn to do it properly than add, check, add, check as I am now.
 
well i mix my own dry salt into RO water, and its really easy, i have a 32 gallon brute trashcan on wheels, i dump like 15-20 gallons of water into, drop in a little "30 gallon" heater, and a 300gph pump, and get it stirred up, then i take a measuring cup, and i put in about 1/2 to 3/4 a cup of salt per gallon, let that run and circulate over night, and then the next day, i measure temp and SG, then adjust as needed(i allways end up adding a few more cups of salt) but that way i never get it too salty. I keep mine right at 1.023 according to my swing arm testers... ( i dont have one of thoes fancy things yet)

then after i get the water where i want it, i let it circulate for at least 24 hours, re-test, and if all is well(meaning it matches the tank for both SG and temp), then i remove x gallons from the tank, and then pump this new water into the tank, and i'm done....

now, to keep up with evaporation i have an ATO, all that is, is a device that adds plain RO water to my sump when the water level falls due to evap. mine is on a timer, and it runs 8 times a day, every 3 hours, for 2 min each time...

thats all i do, back before i had the ATO, i would just add plain RO by hand each morning before i left for work and then again when i got home... i was adding about 1/2 a gallon each morning, and then again in the evening, and then entire system volume was about 80 gallons... i tried a couple times, to measure any difference in SG before and after doing it by hand, and i couldnt detect a change with the equipment i have...
 
Last edited:
fastrd400 said:
I have actually thought of getting an RO/DI unit. My issues are that I haven't a clue at what salinity to mix my water at. I've always gone with the understanding that water evaporates, salt does not. Going by that rule I wouldn't want to over dose my system on salt. Anyone who does this themselves that has feedback, suggestions, or instructions I am all ears. I'd rather learn to do it properly than add, check, add, check as I am now.
Click to expand...

That's easy. You buy a hydrometer or refractometer, and measure the salinity of the water before you add it to the tank. Your water should be anywhere between 1.021 and 1.026. When water evaporates, you add fresh water to top the tank off, not saltwater. When you do a water change, you remove saltwater and replace it with saltwater.

If your tank is in the proper salinity range, you just add saltwater that's also in the proper salinity range (they don't need to match exactly, they both just need to be between 1.021 and 1.026).

Salt comes with directions on the container -- usually it's 1/2 cup of salt for every 1 gallon of water. This will put you in the correct range the vast majority of the time.

I don't think anyone on here buys pre-made saltwater from the LFS, it's just too expensive. I'd say 99% of us make our own water at home.
 
Hey Biff, I have seen you post before concerning an RO unit, or company. I can't find it right now in the threads, can you tell me what it was?
 

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