WOW made out yet again .........

The other night I did a water change on a few of my tanks. I used up
all of the salt I had onhand, and needed more, so I asked the wife
once again to pick up a pail of salt at the lfs......LFS was out of
the 160 gal pails, as well as other sizes, and all they had was some
10 gal mixes.....So she picked up 5, 10 gal mix boxes of salt up.

I dump it all in my large container, add the rodi and turn on power
heads etc etc and as usual, go to bed. The next night I went to do the
water changes, and I noticed lots of salt left on the bottom of the
container.........I readjusted power heads and left it go for a bit
longer. The next morning I go to do my water change once again, and
this time I just checked and adjusted slainity without really looking
things over very well, made some adjustments to water, and got it
where I wanted it in terms of SG, and pumped out a few jugs full.
Drained off tanks, added my first jug of water, then the second, and
I noticed my tank got cloudy milky white looking.......Hmmmmmmm, whats
up? A check of my water that I was usuing revealed it was
cloudy.....looked in the large container, and it was cloudy and there
was still salt on the bottom in large areas undissolved......Stopped
my water change for the time, and left power heads on agaiin......next
day the stuff was still sediement on the bottom undissolved....I
siphoned some of it out and added it to rodi water and mixed by
hand......made the water milky, but still would not
dissolve.....Something or other is not right......I even boiled some
in the microwave, and it remained undissolved........So, I then call
Instant Ocean up, talk to a tech support dude, who tells me the salt
is probably old, and the residue is calcium carbonate, just like what
aragonite sand is made out of.......In a fish only tank its not a
problem, but if used in a reef tank the calcium levels will be very
low........So I therefore screwed up my parameters with this old salt.

He said he would send me a 5 gal bucket of salt out right away. I told
him it was not the salt that I used that was originally in the 5 gal
bucket, but one or all of the small 10 gal box mixes that gae the
problem. His reply was , yes, I know that, but I'll send you a 5 gal
bucket for your troubles and wasted time trying to mix it and having
to redo your calcium levels, the waste of your rodi water etc......NOw
thats hard to beat. I buy 5, 10 gal box mixes of salt, and used
perhaps 20 gal of it until I seen something was not right, and get a 5
gal bucket to replace the small boxes. Thats customer service. He
also stated the water was fine, if I add supplements, but that would
be my option.....but an option I should not normally have to
utilize......
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The original frugal ponder ! Koi-ahoi mates....