salt concentrations

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 16:45:07 -0400, Chris Palma wrote:


Hi.

I can't help with a recommendation for the concentration that you want,
but I think I can help with the unit conversion.

I checked, and a tablespoon = 14.8 ml. 10 US gallons is 37.85L. So 1
tbsp / 10 US gallons is roughly a 0.04% solution (just about 400 ppm). 1
tbsp per 5 gallons should be twice that, or 0.08%. So I think that your
estimate of 0.1% solution is on the high end of the original
recommendation you read.

--chris


On Sat, 19 Jun 2004 01:11:29 -0400, NetMax wrote:

Not very precise, but easy to remember, every teaspoon per gallon is
0.1% (a US teaspoon is about 5ml).


By my own experience and calculations I found that a metic tot measure of
25 ml capacity contained salt (fairly course) that weighed 33g. This was
calculated by measuring 15 level tots and weighing the salt on a scale
that was accurate to 20g and divinding the weight 496 by 15 to get 33.07
which I rounded down to 33g per 25 ml of salt. I would imagine that finer
salt would have weighed more.

So according to Netmaxs approximation rule of 5ml salt per gallon (3.79l)
= 0.1 % or 1000ppm I calculated completed differently by the following
methodology

5ml salt = 5/25 * 33 = 6.6g of salt per gal or 3.75 litre therefore
6.6/3.79 = 1.74g per litre = 1740mg per liter or ppm = 0.17 % or 70% more
than 0.1 % approximation.

From Chris' conversion we get the following calculation

14.8ml of salt = 14.8/25 *33 = 19.54g salt per 37.85 litres
19.54/37.85 = 0.52 g per litre = 520mg per litre or ppm = .05% = 25% more
than chris' rough figure but close enough I would imagine!

Obviously both Chris and Netmax never gave exact conversions but
useable approximations, unless my maths is way out We can see that
teaspoon/tablespoon to measure salt is a lousy measure and it would be
nice to see people using ppm or percentage figures for salt remedies.

But in closing I guess even if for me (and my paticular salt granule size)
either method would have given a reasonable concebtration even if they
were (according to my calcs 25 and 75 percent out at these low
concentrations particlularly for the large cichlids I have a .1% or even
..2% solution is not going to have a harmfull effect.

I do not think I have worked my brain harder than this for a while - but
it is fun!!

On further reading and taking a picture of my oscar which really shows it
I amd more convinced that it is suffering from HITH. You can see a picture
here if you would like to confirm this for me and comment on the severity
of this case. www.geocities.com/thereaperman69

Thanks

Trev