Salt bucket solidified

[captexas]

I planned to make up some fresh saltwater today for a water change, but I found my entire bucket of Instant Ocean salt had solidified into a giant salt chunk. This is one of the new buckets with the seal on it! Anyone ever have this happen to them? :angry

[carlinsa]

never had that happen but i did leave my bucket outside while it rained with the top on and it got hard as a rock. i just chipped it apart and it worked out just fine.

[Shark_Bait]

Never a new bucket, but don't think they are air tight. So if it was stored in a really humid area guess it could solidify. I had this happen to two buckets one was a rock all the way through and one was just an inch thick on top. Just chipped it out and had no problems. It was a pain to break off the right size piece though so have some clean RO water ready for adjustments.

[subber]

Got my lasty salt that way, in fact, bought four buckets for $5 each because they were solid. As Carl said, I just chip a chunk and it works fine. I'm thinking of using the food processor to crumble the chunks!! :lol

[Ram_Puppy]

that reeks of my first instant ocean experience. humidity was the killer I think.

I would be woried about taking chunks off it, who's to say your getting the right balance of mix? I shake my buckets up every time I go to get salt to make sure everything is nice and mixed. (of course at 350 lbs and 6'5" shaking a bucket isn't all that hard for me! )

[Ram_Puppy]

I wonder if you added RO water to the bucket if you could make the entire thing dissolve into a brine solution like the liquid fritz salt mix?

[GaryP]

Its just because of the humidity. Its ok, you're going to be adding a lot more water to it. Some of the salts in there, such as calcium, absorb water from the air.

Have you ever seen table salt get clumpy from being in humid air? Same thing. Guess what the main salt in salt mixes is? Table salt, otherwise known as sodium chloride.

[cpreefguy]

Yeah, throw some rice in it and viola :lol

[Darth-Tater]

Does that mean we should put a bag of rice in the bucket to absorb the humidity? :lol I just break up the clumps and it works fine.

DT