making salt.

**Ahxren** · 20th Oct 2011, 20:24

How to make your own salt water?

**BFG** · 22nd Oct 2011, 23:08

Purchase a reputable grade salt meant for salt water application for the hobby. Next, you will need to have pure water, the kind that does not contain chlorine or chloramine and other impurities. DO NOT at any time, use water straight from the tap. If you need to use tap water, get a filtration unit that contain di resin and carbon media to filter out most of the impurities found in tap water. You would also have to purchase 2 more piece of equipment, a refractometer and a calibration fluid for the refractometer called American Pinpoint Salinity Calibration fluid. American Pinpoint is the brand and the calibration fluid is widely used and accepted as the preferred salinity calibration fluid to measure up to.

1st thing to do is to calibrate the refractometer by using the calibration fluid from American Pinpoint. Drop a couple drop of this fluid onto the refractometer 'lense' and drop the shield onto the the fluid. Point your refractometer to a light source and look through eye piece to look at the level marker inside. The reading should be 0, where the line indicate. If it's not at the 0 level, use the small screw provided with the refractometer set to adjust the level to point it to the 0 mark. You should have a calibrated refractometer now. Imho, a refractometer is better than using a floating hydrometer as a floating hyrometer accuracy might be affected by the presence of air bubbles that might screw the accuracy reading.

Next, get a container to mix the 2 together. You have to get the pure water in 1st until the amount you need. Get a pump, preferably a 1000lt/hr for a 5 gallon bucket ( bigger capacity pump for larger water container ). Get the pump going and add small amount at a time. Measure the salinity level of your mixture and stopped adding the salt when you've reached a salinity level of 1.026. Ensure that the temperature of this mixture is at safe level, 26-28 degree before adding into your tank as salts, when added to water, tends to raise the temperature ( I have forgotten the scientific term for this reaction ).

Hope this helps!

**Solasido** · 10th Dec 2011, 15:54

Hi bros, related to this topic;

If use tab water and added with anti-chlorine; then run the water under activated carbon filter for a night before mixing with marine salt; will this work?

RO unit is too expensive for me to afford.

Thanks, bro

**BFG** · 11th Dec 2011, 13:43

Originally Posted by Solasido

Hi bros, related to this topic;

If use tab water and added with anti-chlorine; then run the water under activated carbon filter for a night before mixing with marine salt; will this work?

RO unit is too expensive for me to afford.

Thanks, bro

If you are on a budget, get the Life brand bottled water from NTUC. Use this water for your salt mix. No need to add anti-chlorine or anything else but the salt.