Randy, why don't you make your own salt?

[brandonberry]

Hey Randy,

If you see this, I was just wondering why you don't make your own salt.

While IO is rather cheap compared to other asw mixtures, it is still rather expensive compared to buying the raw chemicals from a chemical supply company.

Is it possible for a person to make their own ASW mixture, and if so do you have a recommended recipe?

Thanks

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Personally, I'm too busy trying to invent pharmaceuticals to make reef products. More satisfying, more money...

A single of my previous products (Renagel) may make more profit (hundreds of millions of dollars per year) than all reef aquarium chemicals combined (although I'm just guessing on that) and while I do not get any portion of it, I am paid well to invent future products.

I see you are in the same business? Where?

Making salt mixes is a huge pain because to make a really good one, you need to know the levels of most impurities in every main ingredient to know how that is impacting all the minor and trace elements. That's why no salt mixes can match NSW for all the minor and trace elements.

I give a basic recipe here, but at the end of the day, it ends up being very expensive to make small batches:

What is seawater
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-11/rhf/index.php

from it:

An Artificial Seawater Recipe



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For those who are interested, the following artificial seawater recipe is taken from "Chemical Oceanography" by Frank Millero. It makes a recipe that matches 35 ppt seawater in terms of major ions, but does not try to match all minor and trace elements, most of which will be present as impurities in the major elements.

23.98 g sodium chloride
5.029 g magnesium chloride
4.01 g sodium sulfate
1.14 g calcium chloride
0.699 g potassium chloride
0.172 g sodium bicarbonate
0.100 g potassium bromide
0.0254 g boric acid
0.0143 g strontium chloride
0.0029 g sodium fluoride
Water to 1 kg total weight.

[brandonberry]

Thanks Randy. I may try to make some at some point just for the heck of it.

It does look a little more complicated than I originally thought. I was hoping I could just mix some NaCl with Dow Flake, Mag Flake, epson salt, and baking soda.

I am also in the pharmaceutical business, at Hospira. My job probably isn't quite as exciting as yours those. Currently I am a supervisor for the drug solutions and filling department of our IV line. Just so everyone knows, I wasn't implying that I could get these chemicals from where I work. My father owns a soft drink business and is able to get me whatever I need through his chemical supplier.

BTW Randy, I sent you a PM about a week ago at reefs.org. Do you ever get a chance to check that? No rush, just wondering.

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

If you do make some, let us know how it works out.

FWIW, I've not been to reefs.org in a long time.