I know you and others have had problems lately with the RC brand of salt. If I'm not mistaken, didn't someone buy Aquarium Systems a few years ago? If so, a lot of times a new owner is not committed to quality control as the originator and more interested in tweaking out more profit. I'm not sure that is the case at all, just suspicious.
There's very little Chemist in me so, your question about low
pH in purified water compromising
Ca's dissolution into solution will necessarily go unanswered. Sorry! There might be a benefit to warming the water to tank temp prior to adding salt in that it would dissolve quicker/better/more thoroughly. Don't know for sure as my water stored outside comes in quite warm and my mixing/dissolving is done quickly.
The sock was put into use when I began collecting
NSW. I would "filter" the
NSW for 48 hours through the sock. Interesting how the
NSW "looked" so clean and how the sock would "dirty-up" in that time. Not sure what it was taking out but, I felt like I was doing the right thing. I collected seven miles do East of the Fort Pierce Inlet. WHY SEVEN MILES??? Easy, lucky number, I could still see FL to the West of me, the water looked crystal clear and the first time I collected, it was at the seven mile mark according to my GPS, about twenty feet down was a Hawksbill turtle. I shut the engine down, turned the poat around and he surfaced about 40' away. Then, off he went. That was an Omen of some kind. I marked the GPS with "Water Source" and that became the go to spot.
Collect and using
NSW was never about economics. It was always about using the "real thing". Now with fuel over $4 a gallon we seldom go out. Of course we are concentrating on the building right now. I'm sure we'll do some
NSW collecting when that's done.
Dick
