[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: cheap salt ( was Aquatic Plants Digest V4 #437) HATE that!






> Date: Thu, 27 Jul 2000 07:59:00 EDT
> From: IDMiamiBob at aol_com
> Subject: Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V4 #436
> 
> In a message dated 7/27/00 1:51:17 AM Mountain Daylight Time,
> Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com writes:
> 
> > But...don't these salts, especially the road de-icer, contain lots of
> >  impurities?  That's what I've always heard, although I must admit, I don't
> >  know whether those "impurities" would harm fish.
> 
> Careful- Some de-icers are sodium hydroxide.  Impurities in other non-table
> salts are the kind of salts that occur in salt water.

Both wrong, Bob. Sorry. Sodium hydroxide is lye, and would play hell with
road surface and car bodies if used, not to mention any skin it touched.
CaCl2 is sometimes used, which might raise your GH without any change in KH.
AFAIK, the main place non-NaCl salts are used as de-icer is in a few conifer
forests where the regular salt kills the roadside trees.

Table salt contains *none* of the other major sea-salt compounds. It is
fractionally crystallized (or mined from deposits where that happened
naturally) and surprisingly pure. I suspect that is true for most of the
so-called "sea salt" in the health-food stores, too. That's one of the
reasons they have to deliberately add traces of sodium or potassium iodide
(plus non-clogging agents) for that is plentiful in sea water.

Wright

-- 
Wright Huntley, Fremont CA, USA, 510 494-8679  huntleyone at home dot com

                There are two rules for success in life:
             Rule 1: Don't tell people everything you know.

               *** http://www.self-gov.org/index.html ***