Please Pass the Salt!
Oceanarium progress update: The pools are filled with water! But that’s just the first step in preparing for the much-anticipated return of the belugas, dolphins and other marine mammals.
Shedd’s Facilities team is involved in a two-week process to take delivery of salt – lots and lots of it. On Monday, April 6, we started receiving the first shipment of 403 bags of Instant Ocean Sea Salt®, a commercial marine salt mix.
Each huge bag of salt, referred to as a “super sack,” weighs more than a ton – 2,250 pounds, to be exact. Seventeen Instant Ocean Super Sacks fit on a flatbed truck. We will receive three truckloads a night for eight nights. It requires a forklift to move the super sacks from the dock to the former special exhibit area, where they’re lined up on rows of pallets. Then, one at a time, the super sacks are moved by forklift to a hatch in the floor. Openings at the bottom of the super sacks are lined up with the hatch. Just like adding flour to a cake mix, the super sack is opened and the salt pours down the hatch and into the water-filled ozone towers where it dissolves. From there, the newly salted water is pumped into the pools.
All told, it will take more than 560 hours of labor to complete this project. Two operators spend eight hours every night during the two-week process to move the Instant Ocean Sea Salt from the dock to the Oceanarium mezzanine. Two additional four-man teams work two daytime shifts of eight hours apiece to mix the 906,750 pounds of Instant Ocean Sea Salt to get the mix… mmmm, just right! Just right, in cetacean lingo, means a salinity level of 3.5 percent, which is checked three times a day during this process.
There’s a “green” element to this story. Super sacks are standard for bulk salt deliveries. Each super sack is equal to 45 cardboard boxes of Instant Ocean Sea Salt. Just imagine all the cardboard boxes we’d have to recycle if the product came in that way. And while the words “salt mixing” probably conjure up visions of guys with very large paddles stirring brine night and day, but in reality, by using the ozone towers to do the mixing, we’re not consuming any additional equipment or energy to make up all this salt water – 3.2 million gallons.
Check out footage and articles from the media covering our salt story:
ABC-7
Chicago Tribune
Medill
Chicago Breaking News
WGN-TV
CLTV
Posted by Susan Barton, facilities
About Instant Ocean:
Instant Ocean, the only sea salt backed by more than 40 years of research and innovation and the No. 1 choice among hobbyists and public aquariums around the world, is proud to partner with Shedd Aquarium.
All told, it will take more than 560 hours of labor to complete this project. Two operators spend eight hours every night during the two-week process to move the Instant Ocean Sea Salt from the dock to the Oceanarium mezzanine. Two additional four-man teams work two daytime shifts of eight hours apiece to mix the 906,750 pounds of Instant Ocean Sea Salt to get the mix… mmmm, just right! Just right, in cetacean lingo, means a salinity level of 3.5 percent, which is checked three times a day during this process.
There’s a “green” element to this story. Super sacks are standard for bulk salt deliveries. Each super sack is equal to 45 cardboard boxes of Instant Ocean Sea Salt. Just imagine all the cardboard boxes we’d have to recycle if the product came in that way. And while the words “salt mixing” probably conjure up visions of guys with very large paddles stirring brine night and day, but in reality, by using the ozone towers to do the mixing, we’re not consuming any additional equipment or energy to make up all this salt water – 3.2 million gallons.
Check out footage and articles from the media covering our salt story:
ABC-7
Chicago Tribune
Medill
Chicago Breaking News
WGN-TV
CLTV
Posted by Susan Barton, facilities
About Instant Ocean:
Instant Ocean, the only sea salt backed by more than 40 years of research and innovation and the No. 1 choice among hobbyists and public aquariums around the world, is proud to partner with Shedd Aquarium.
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