Advice On Mixing Salt

[Unseen]

Hi,

This is actually zeo (not unseen)..

Anyway I'm a little stuck and was hoping you guys could give me some advice.

As I am now getting ready to setup my marine aquarium, a 260Lt Juwel Vision. I now have a large 210Lt water butt sitting in my bath tub collecting drips of RO water.

The problem I now have is what is the best way to mix the salt?

Option 1:
I fill the empty (barebottom) aquarium with the full 260Lts of RO water, and then mix the salt in to the right concentration using a power head (No filters attached).

The problem I am thinking with this is that it might be difficult to aquascape the aquarium with the tank filled with water? Mainly laying down the coral sand, live sand and ocean rocks (no live rock yet) let alone placing the heaters, filters, powerheads and skimmer.

Option 2:
Mix the salt in the waterbutt (210lt) using a powerhead again. Then place the water into the ready setup and scaped aquarium. HOWEVER I will still need to collect and mix another 50lts of RO water. As the aquarium needs 260Lt. Dont know how many more hours/days that will take to gather.

But will the Water butt be any good after this to store ready made RO water? (for future use).

Option 3:
Mix up small batchs of salt RO water in a bucket. Then gradually add it to the aquarium. However I have no idea how much water the average bucket can hold? Will prob take a long time, esp calebrating each batch of salt.


Any other advice/suggestions would be much appreciated.

 

[Filmoholic]

Sounds like they are all good options however I would put your sand in and than lay a trash bag on top of the sand so as you add your water your not blasting the sand into your water.that stuff takes days to clear up. I just stir my buckets manualy but if you just put your powerhead in to the bucket things will mix nice. its not to bad scaping under water becouse chances are even if you do that before you fill the tank your gonna want to move it around anyways. good luck!

 

[SkiFletch]

Option 2 all the way. I reccomend it always. Remember, your LR will displace some of the water volume, and chances are (depending on its porosity) you won't even use 210L of saltwater in the tank. Make sure you get it up to a reasonable temp in the 70s and get the right sg first.

Then prepare the tank with a pad on the bottom to displace some of the point contact of rocks on glass, aquascape dry with the rocks on the bottom glass. Add sand around the rocks. Secure hardware (powerheads, heaters, skimmers, sumps, etc), and fill with saltwater by slowly pouring it on the rocks. Turn on hardware and sit back and wait

The butt (i'm assuming this is a bin of some sort) can be re-used to store RO water. You don't even really have to rinse it, the tiny amount of salt on it when fully drained will not affect your aquarium. You're gonna use pounds of salt, and when the few droplets leftover evaporate, its only going to leave grams of salt behind.

 

[Musho3210]

i filled it up 3/4's, got the right salinity, put live rock in, topped off with a bit more saltwater.

 

[sophos9]

Buy the starting salt water from your LFS then use your own to top it up...