- Today on BRStv,
the two ions that make up more than 86%
of what's in your salt bucket, two major elements.
Do you know what they are?
Do they matter?
And how to use this knowledge to evolve our tanks better,
healthier growth, coloration and reduce mortalities.
(upbeat music)
Hey this is Ryan, BRStv master series,
dive in that gap between good, great
and all the progress left on the table.
Very few reefers have put much thought
in the two most abundant ions in your salt bucket.
And in turn tank today,
a deep dive into sodium and chlorine or chloride.
I guarantee you're gonna walk away from this
with a different perspective and how these two elements
affect the success of your tank,
but more importantly, how to find those incremental results
and master major elements in your reef tank.
I'm gonna be brave here and poke the bear a bit
because the desire is to take what we've already learned,
that type of progress and then find the next evolution.
Today's all about sodium and chlorine combined together.
Sodium chloride and basically table salt,
chloride is the negatively charged form of chlorine.
So know when you see chlorine mentioned in relation to ICP
and other types of reef tank testing,
it's probably easier to think of it as the chloride portion
of sodium chloride.
The most important thing to grasp is sodium chloride
makes up roughly 86% of what's in your salt mix.
A vast, vast majority of what's in the bucket
is sodium chloride salt.
In fact, there's around four gallons of sodium chloride
in your five gallon bucket of salt.
Sodium and chloride ions are so abundant
that as long as overall salinity is kept in check,
it's very unlikely that either it would be a limiting factor
to coral or fish metabolic function.
But there are two significant considerations
with sodium chloride,
I think every reefer should be aware of.
First it's elevated sodium chloride
from dosing any type of two part.
If you dose two part, you have this issue
and may have been completely unaware.
Two part not only elevates salinity
in sodium chloride concentrations,
but will throw off the entire element balance of the tank.
This is one of those things that happen slowly over time
and you may not even notice it's happening
until you're trying to solve coral health issues,
related to seriously depleted minor and trace elements.
As this series goes on,
you'll see why that's legit issue worth fixing,
especially if it's low cost and easy.
So here's the challenge.
The calcium portion of every two parts,
just calcium chloride salt when added to water,
the calcium chloride ionizes and splits off
and separates into calcium and chloride.
Corals utilize the calcium,
but leave that chloride behind to build up in the tank.
The alkalinity portion of two parts always sodium based
most commonly sodium carbonate or sodium bicarbonate.
In this case, the sodium carbonate ionizes
and splits when it hits the water.
Corals utilize the carbon air bicarbonate
and the sodium is left to build up
with every single two part dose made to the tank.
However, if you look at the net of all this,
the sodium and chloride left over from that process
is essentially the same as dosing sodium chloride salt
to the tank every day,
which is obviously going to increase salinity.
In fact, if you take a two part dose,
which is the equivalent of 1.5 dKH replacement
common to many SPS dominant tanks.
The overall salinity they take may rise 50% over the year,
meaning going from 35 parts per thousand to nearly 50,
obviously a bad move for the tank.
In a moment, I'm gonna share a calculator
where you can actually enter your tank size
and dose to identify exactly
what the salinity effect will be on your specific tank.
But first, why are you not seeing this effect
with your tank?
The answer is water changes,
taking elevated salinity water out of the tank
and replacing it with the right salinity
as part of normal water changes, corrects for this.
For instance, a 10% weekly water change limits
the yearly increase to about 2 parts per thousand
from 35 to 37 in a year
and a not a difficult issue to deal with.
Even 20% once a month water change limits the increase
to 3.5 or 38 and a half parts per thousand
by the end of the year.
So you can see even the most basic approaches
to water changes has a significant mitigating effect
on the increased sodium chloride and salinity.
Regular water changes how vast majority of reefers
in the past including myself have handled
the excess sodium chloride.
This is a good option, easy to understand and implement
because of that, it also produces good results in our tanks.
Okay, so what is great look like then?
Well, that addresses a totally different problem.
Let's say the excess sodium chloride that I'm adding
raises this salinity to 38.5 or in my case 3.5
parts per thousand too high.
The solution that is fairly simple,
remove 10% of the saltwater from the tank
and replace it with fresh water to dilute it back down.
There's also a calculator for that,
that I'll share in a moment as well.
Diluting the higher salinity water back down,
seems simple enough in something
that we've all done before,
either in the tank or salt bin.
But the difference between the tank
and the saltwater mixing bin lies the difference.
Presuming you're using a decent salt mix,
in the salt bin every element is starting
at the proper ratio to each other
and they scale up and down proportionally.
In this case, dilution with freshwater works well.
However, in the tank if the excess sodium and chloride
that you've been dosing to tank every day,
raises the salinity to 10% to 38.5 parts per thousand
the elements are already out of ratio
with sodium chloride too high
and all the other elements spot on.
So when I dilute the water back down
to 35 parts per thousand,
by removing saltwater and replacing with freshwater,
every element will now be 10% lower than it was
calcium was 420 will now be 378.
Calcium is easy to fix,
but it's not easy to fix with all the minor trace elements.
It actually compounds the fact that major,
minor and trace elements
may not actually be managed all that well to begin with.
The biggest issue here is a chemistry balance
only gets worse with every year
that the tank is up.
So why is this not a bigger issue?
Well, I believe it likely is a bigger issue
than most people realize and mostly just ignored.
Simple fact is if you've been doing something
seemingly successfully for two years,
it's difficult to believe that it's the cause
of today's tank issues, periodic unexplained mortalities,
or sometimes even just a leap forward
to evolutionary results.
To be frank a couple of decades ago,
getting past that first year of reefing
was a major challenge for the average reefer.
However, that's largely been solved.
The water chemistry solutions, available information
and related equipment have dramatically reduced
the type of major chemistry errors,
which show up in that first 12 to 24 months.
The evolution going on now is eliminating
the type of smaller chemistry errors,
that have acquired a cumulative effect over many years.
The goal is to make the three to 10 year
chemistry challenges no longer an issue as well.
And it doesn't have to be expensive or complex
to be effective.
Recent years have removed the clouding guessing
from this as well with ICP testing,
which will tell you definitively if this a trending issue
in your tank or chemistry's grossly off track.
Send a couple of vials of water to Triton
or similar reefing ICP company.
And look for specifically,
for both elevated sodium and chloride levels,
coupled with large swaths of depleted elements.
You can use this information to decide for yourself,
if you believe it's worth fixing.
These are my three preferred methods
of avoiding the elevated sodium chloride salinity
and longer term chemistry imbalances
in order of a balance of cost and complexity.
The first is up your water change game.
Water changes in dilution with freshly mixed saltwater
is one of the easiest and most effective solutions
to avoiding longterm chemistry issues.
An extra bucket of salt to you,
is one of the lower cost methods,
and once a year stringing together four 25% weekly
water changes for a month,
which will turn almost 70% of the water,
mitigating the progression of smaller issues
and larger chemistry missteps as well.
Avoiding negative results by default,
these large changes should match temperature,
calcium and alkalinity of the tank.
Similar effect could be achieved a bit more stably
with a stronger approach to regular water changes as well.
10% weekly, 20% every other week or 35% once a month,
which turns over about the same amount of water each month,
whichever you find easier to perform.
This type of cumulative 35% water changes monthly schedule,
minimize the immediate and cumulative effects
of all kinds of chemistry missteps,
or less than ideal dosing solutions.
The second method of mitigating
the sodium chloride elevation
is two part using a two part
that directly addresses the increased salinity
and related chemistry imbalances.
The most time tested and respected probably being
Tropic Marin's Balling Method.
In Randy's Investigates it's also ended up being
one of the lowest cost two parts out there as well.
The Balling Method has three parts.
The alkalinity is predominantly sodium bicarbonate.
Calcium is calcium chloride.
And part three is what they call sodium chloride free salt.
The third part or part C
is basically just their salt bucket mix
without the sodium chloride, calcium alkalinity.
Net effect here is once the calcium chloride
and sodium bicarbonate are added to the tank,
that leftover sodium chloride bounces out with part C
to basically make complete salt water.
So when the salinity eventually rises
and you have to dilute the tank water
by removing some saltwater and replacing with freshwater,
the drop is done uniformly without creating brand new
major imbalances.
Well, no solution is absolutely perfect.
This is going to mitigate many of the longer term imbalances
does it affordably and easily.
In fact, it's becoming increasingly popular
to do with the BRS Bulk Pharma,
Tropic Marin Balling hybrid method,
which is just BRS calcium alkalinity with their part C,
which is around 16 bucks and can make as much as 20 gallons
with their part C.
Luckily just a buck or two a month
to transition from a good approach to a great one.
Love the video out shortly,
which has the exact directions and how to mix this
and use the hybrid method.
The third option here is yet a totally different approach,
and that's a Triton Method Core7 four part
and the most costly.
Most of you know that the Triton Method
is based on limited water changes,
but also uses a chloride based calcium
and sodium based alkalinity additive.
So how can it work long term?
Well, they say they've designed it to work
with excess sodium chloride in mind.
So just running a wet skimmer to remove some
of the saltwater daily in our top off
to automatically replace it with fresh water.
If your specific skimmer doesn't keep up,
then manually remove some of the water periodically
and let the ATO replace it with fresh water.
They share all of the elements in the four part
or designed specifically for this
particularly in a minimal water change environment,
probably more importantly,
this method relies on ICP testing to demonstrate
it's actually delivering on that promise.
I think it's important to note here,
that if you do do water changes or don't have a refugium
the Triton Other Methods is probably a better formulation
for you.
If you're going to use the Triton Method,
hamzasreef.com has a cool calculator,
which tells you the net effect of the skimmer,
removing saltwater and ATO replacing it with freshwater.
This is also where you can find the calculator
I mentioned for saltwater dilution, effective water changes
and two part imbalance calculator, all very cool tools.
For those looking for my own personal recommendation,
I believe one of the water change solutions
coupled with Tropic Marin's Balling or BRS Hybrid approach
is affordable and easy to implement solution
to today's challenges.
But there is a second challenge with sodium chloride
that has nothing to do with two part,
something that I experienced for years,
myself without knowing it.
And there's an easy solution for as well.
It's less about the elements themselves
and more about what comes along with it.
Since sodium chloride makes up around 86%
of the bucket of salt.
The source of sodium chloride is probably
the single biggest determining factor
and the overall impurity content of the result mix.
So for this conversation,
I'm gonna use salt mix and sodium chloride
almost interchangeably because while the salt bucket
might have a fish on the front, making it seem magical,
a vast majority of your salt bucket is just sodium chloride.
Some salt mixes might include more or trace elements
or have the better method of mixing
or incorporating them homogeneously.
But how the sodium chloride is obtained
is a number one source of impurities
and likely the single biggest quality differentiator.
Impurities in the sodium chloride are almost certainly
the primary or direct cause of the brown crust
or surface films that form in your salt bucket
and it's absolutely avoidable.
No one really knows what's in that brown crud or film,
and it's likely different based on each salt.
I think we can all agree that it's undesirable.
But in a vast majority of cases also does not seem
to be preventative to success either.
So that spirit, I believe basically any popular salt out
there that matches your desired parameters
is likely capable of that baseline goal, a healthy reef tank
and I characterize most of them as good options.
So what's the progress left on the table
or great in this case?
Some salts certainly do seem to produce
more consistent results than others with fewer complaints.
But past all those anecdotal reports,
I believe great means less work,
less risk and incremental results with the fish and corals.
I'm gonna share some precise methods to achieve those goals
in just a moment.
Less work meaning your storage pump
and equipment don't need to be cleaned frequently.
Less risk meaning reducing longterm impurity risks
and incremental results with fish and corals,
meaning at minimum, a reduction in unexplained mortalities,
but potentially other health benefits as well.
To understand how any of that can be achieved,
it's important to know where the sodium chloride comes from.
Sodium chloride is predominantly produced
by using one of three methods.
Mining salt deposits from the ground
either by blasting apart an underground rooms
and conveying the rock salt out
or pouring water into deep salt wells and dissolving
and pumping it out.
As well as evaporating seawater often in out door
solar evaporation ponds,
or as a byproduct of desalination plants.
There's obvious contamination concerns
for all these natural sources and they need to be refined
to some degree to remove undesirable impurities.
That refining process costs can easily be multiples
of the source material and has a direct impact
on the cost of the salt bucket.
Historically, the primary pressure is actually bend
to do as little as possible to keep the retail price low.
The lowest cost methods often using minimal processing,
but finding mines that have pockets
with naturally lower impurities
and or adding key lading agents to the salt mixes
to bind up the undesirable metals and impurities.
So they're still in there when you mix up your salt water,
they're just not biologically available.
My experience in the industry tells me this approach
is often good enough to produce a stable reef tank,
but the impurities in the sodium chloride produced this way
can often be seen with the naked eye.
And there's always that manage risk of an unlucky vain
of impurities in the source material,
the periodic quality testing misses
or simply isn't tested for.
A seemingly rare event being impurities and source materials
are one of the more obvious potential legit explanations
for the otherwise unexplained periodic reports
of a specific batch of salt,
harming clusters of tanks
within a reef club region or nationally.
Because reefers are more aware of these challenges now,
a different approach or priority is gaining popularity
in recent years.
Using higher grades of sodium chloride,
which have been refined to greater degrees
like pharmaceutical grade material.
Rather than relying on testing and catching,
most these methods basically assume
the material has an array of impurities and refines them
to meet standards defined within the various grades.
A process that doesn't just reduce or nearly eliminate
the contaminants listed in the grade,
but by default, a whole list of undesirables as well.
The grading process independently ensures the facility,
raw materials, process and end chemical
is suitable for the application.
Net result is a refined graded sodium chloride
often eliminates the need for key larders,
the brown crud in the salt and dramatically reduces
the risk of undesirable elements spikes
that may come with a primary element
in your salt bucket, sodium chloride.
Refining processes with clear standards
that are independently verified is what great looks like.
And they're legit benefits that can be seen
with the naked eye potentially much more.
And there's some simple, low cost solutions to all of this
that I'm about to share.
First and lowest cost is if your primary concern
is just keeping the salt bin clean
and avoiding dosing that brown crud to the tank
specifically not accidentally dosing concentrations,
as it builds up after many batches,
something like a small CJ pump
and a filter sock in your salt bin can go a long way,
but even better,
a BRS reactor with a sediment filter like the five micron
ROSave.Z will have a higher upfront cost,
but lasts a long time and a more complete solution
for removing undesirable gunk from your salt mix.
Second is a use of synthetic salt mixes.
Synthetic salt are based on sodium chloride as well.
But rather than mined or evaporated,
the sodium chloride is produced chemically
in often has fewer impurities because of that.
Not as pure as some of the higher graded materials,
but often a good middle ground of price and quality,
hw reefer is a good example of a globally popular
synthetic salt.
I'm gonna say the third option is pretty obvious.
Avoid all the impurities from the start
with salt mixes that clearly state
the greater materials used.
Tropic Marin's Salt with clearly labeled pharmaceutical
grade ingredients being by far the most popular option
on the market.
Beyond the label Tropic Marin's Pro-Reef also had by far
the best overall performance of any of the salts
in all of Randy's BRStv Investigates
ranging from mixing time, clarity,
precipitation, stratification, ICP
and storage stability in a whole variety of environments.
I presented the grading material last
because it's the most expensive prolonged costs,
with the buckets around a hundred bucks.
But the reality is the bucket last two to four months
for most people.
So it's likely only five to $10 more a month,
the most popular options.
One of the rare instances in reefing,
where you get to use the best available option
without really breaking the bank.
I can tell you that sodium chloride build up and effect
on salinity overall chemistry,
were just not on the top of my list of concerns
for most of my reefing journey,
but once I fully understood the challenge
and ease of solving them,
it's hard to unknow what I was doing
was just a good enough mentality.
Some of which is spurred on by the results
of the tanks here at the office.
The E-170 which is doing so well
on the BRS Tropic Marin's Part C Hybrid method.
And all the tanks here are on Tropic Marin Pro
many of which on auto water changes.
So what of the next level information?
Other major elements like magnesium, potassium,
sulfur and calcium.
That's all coming up right here
in our master reef tank chemistry playlist,
the BRStv channel homepage,
in all our master series,
right here.