New food! But have a salt water question

[ehohnadel]

So i just got my package from the hermitcrab patch with my new food. Seriously am way to excited about it. Lol but i have a question. My local petsmart is no longer stocking salt water conditioner. Someone there said soaking salt mix is the same thing. Im not too trusting of their information. So can i use that or should i use instant ocean and make large quanties? Ive not been making the large batches because i live in a small condo so space is really tight with me and my family. And i really dont mind making small jar fulls when needed. It only takes a few minutes.

Tl:dr- Is soaking salt mix usable for the salt water in my tank?

[megmaholm]

Their saltwater mix needs to be marine grade salt, so something like Instant Ocean. You don't need to mix up huge quantities at once - use 1/2 cup of Instant Ocean for a gallon of water. A lot of us buy a gallon of spring water at the grocery store, dechlorinate it, then add the Instant Ocean. You can re-use the jug afterwards with regular dechlorinated tap water.

[ehohnadel]

Thanks! Is there any use for soaking salt in the tank? Its a marine grade product but my not sure of the usefulliness of it.

[megmaholm]

Is it something marketed specifically for hermit crabs? If so, it's fairly useless, unfortunately, and if you can I would just return it.

[parker_roo]

I too just got some food from the Hermit Crab Patch, and I love it (and so do my crabs)! Just to emphasize making salt water, make sure you do dechlorinate the water before you add the salt, such as Instant Ocean. I hate to admit this, and I feel so awful about it, but for a while I totally didn't realize that I should dechlorinate the water before adding the salt. I made fresh water, but I realized I need to make the fresh water, and then add the salt to make it safe. I have felt so bad about not realizing it, and I'm hoping my crabs will be okay. But I just wanted to let you know, in case you or anyone else makes the same mistake as I made. Sorry, that may have been confusing, I gave my crabs both salt and freshwater, the freshwater was safe, but I thought the Instant Ocean would dechlorinate the water, but I was very wrong. I now add the fresh water conditioner to the tap water, and then add the Instant Ocean, I let the conditioner sit for a while before adding the salt.

[YYWW]

I totally did that, too! Thanks for putting it out there!


Crabbers unite!!!