Saltwater not mixing

[LxHowler]

I have recently setup a nano reef tank after years of interest and being freshwater. Earlier today I made 25 litres of RO water and added a heater and pump ready to use for a water change. I added 1kg of h2ocean salt following the instructions, I came back an hour later to check the level and it is only reading 1.007, I normally use a kilo to make my water 1.025. Is there anything obvious that will cause such low salinity levels? I am using a new bucket of salt that I mixed before using
Thanks

 

[theMeat]

Some salts take way more than an hour

 

[Rubblereefer]

Some salts take way more than an hour

while I agree that salt can take more than an hour to fully mix, if he’s using the proper amount of salt with a heater and a pump, it should be reading way higher than that by now. I suspect either your refractometer or whatever scale you’re using to weigh the salt is incorrect. Any chance your scale is set to lbs?

 

[W1ngz]

1kg of salt into that volume of water is about right. Even if it's not fully mixed, it should be a lot higher than 1.007. A few things I can think. It sounds like you added salt to water, and not water to salt so it wouldn't be that.

-testing error. Clean all your droppers and refractometer with RODI, flush with water to be tested, dry them off and test again.
-Did you dump the whole pile of salt at once or shake it in slowly? Any chance it's all in the bottom in a lump?

 

[LxHowler]

1kg of salt into that volume of water is about right. Even if it's not fully mixed, it should be a lot higher than 1.007. A few things I can think. It sounds like you added salt to water, and not water to salt so it wouldn't be that.

-testing error. Clean all your droppers and refractometer with RODI, flush with water to be tested, dry them off and test again.
-Did you dump the whole pile of salt at once or shake it in slowly? Any chance it's all in the bottom in a lump?

I cleaned my refractometer and made sure it was calibrated to 0 with ro water, when I got the low reading I check my refractometer with my tank water and that read at1.025 so that is working.
I slowly added the salt to the mixing container over a couple of minutes to make sure it was distributed evenly. I have a pump running at the bottom and when I added it it was all free and nothing stuck together.

 

[LxHowler]

while I agree that salt can take more than an hour to fully mix, if he’s using the proper amount of salt with a heater and a pump, it should be reading way higher than that by now. I suspect either your refractometer or whatever scale you’re using to weigh the salt is incorrect. Any chance your scale is set to lbs?

My scales read in grams and kilos. I check the calibration of my refractometer after getting the reading and it read 0 with ro water and 1.025 when I tested my tank water so my refractometer is working correctly

 

[W1ngz]

If you're confident in all your weights and tests it could be a bad batch of salt. Maybe try mixing another half bucket (12-13L) with 500g and see if you can reproduce the problem.