Bringing up salinity

[Harry g]

I just found out my salinity is at .1021 how do I bring it up to .1025, do I do it all in one day or just top off with saltwater from now?

 

[Boehmtown]

Slowly. Add some salt water. It'll evaporate down to your auto top of level, and test. Repeat. I'd do it probably over A week or two

 

[bushdoc]

Fish tolerate fast drop in salinity better than raise in salinity, so go slow , over few days

 

[Boehmtown]

I just found out my salinity is at .1021 how do I bring it up to .1025, do I do it all in one day or just top off with saltwater from now?

Also..... How did you "find out". I can tell you, there's more people out there that don't measure their salinity accurately than do

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’d just replace evaporated water with salt water for a week or two until you get to your goal.

 

[Harry g]

I’d just replace evaporated water with salt water for a week or two until you get to your goal.

Will my corals be fine with .1021 for a couple weeks, I have pretty hardy livestock by I do have a rbta

 

[Harry g]

I just found out my salinity is at .1021 how do I bring it up to .1025, do I do it all in one day or just top off with saltwater from now?

Also..... How did you "find out". I can tell you, there's more people out there that don't measure their salinity accurately than do

I went to my Lfs and they tested it with a Hannah salinity checker, I bought refractometer solution to recalibrate my refractrometer and it looks theirs was correct.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Will my corals be fine with .1021 for a couple weeks, I have pretty hardy livestock by I do have a rbta

Yes. Slow changes are better than fast ones.

 

[Heres_doe_]

Please don’t listen to me but I’ve overfilled my tank by leaving my rodi line on overnight and brought my salinity to 1.018. I mix up a very concentrate of salt water and just bring up my salinity in one shot. I’ve had no issues at all doing this. Been doing this many times. My tank is 98% sps.

 

[Boehmtown]

Please don’t listen to me but I’ve overfilled my tank by leaving my rodi line on overnight and brought my salinity to 1.018. I mix up a very concentrate of salt water and just bring up my salinity in one shot. I’ve had no issues at all doing this. Been doing this many times. My tank is 98% sps.

That's because it was not a quick change. You moved faster than your corals.

 

[Heres_doe_]

Please don’t listen to me but I’ve overfilled my tank by leaving my rodi line on overnight and brought my salinity to 1.018. I mix up a very concentrate of salt water and just bring up my salinity in one shot. I’ve had no issues at all doing this. Been doing this many times. My tank is 98% sps.

That's because it was not a quick change. You moved faster than your corals.

So why doesn’t anyone do it like this?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So why doesn’t anyone do it like this?

Ignoring organisms entirely, what you are suggesting would take making very concentrated seawater (which carries its own chemistry issues) and then adding a lot of new water to the system, which is not easily done in many tanks.

Taking organisms into account, I would never boost sg from 1.021 to 1.026 instantly.

 

[Heres_doe_]

So depending on obviously current salinity, water volume and desired salinity I just mix up a batch to where I’m at 1.025 afterwards. (Your talk to smart for me at times) I’ve done it many times with no issues. Not sure why tho and why people say not to do it.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

So depending on obviously current salinity, water volume and desired salinity I just mix up a batch to where I’m at 1.025 afterwards. (Your talk to smart for me at times) I’ve done it many times with no issues. Not sure why tho and why people say not to do it.

Well, this is why I do not do it. I consider it poor practice for organisms to bump it up fast, and it cannot be accomplished in many systems because it means adding a lot of extra volume.

If the sg is 1.021 and you want to get to 1.025, then even if you add double strength seawater, it takes adding 8% of the tank volume (8 gallons in a 100 gallon system) and then waiting for that to evaporate down. Not all systems can accommodate that.

 

[Joe31415]

I have two ways of doing this and both get things back under control over a few days.
On one tank, my AWC fill pump cuts off when it hits a level sensor (in the tank), so I turn off the ATO and turn that on. Then it basically just auto-tops-off with salt water.

On my other tank, I don't change any settings, and I'll add a few gallons of fresh salt water let the water evaporate out until it's back down to the ATO level. Check it and if it's still low, keep doing it.

For lowering it, I just run the drain pump and let the ATO top it off. Pull out a few gallons a day and it's back where it needs to be in a few days.

 

[Heres_doe_]

So depending on obviously current salinity, water volume and desired salinity I just mix up a batch to where I’m at 1.025 afterwards. (Your talk to smart for me at times) I’ve done it many times with no issues. Not sure why tho and why people say not to do it.

Well, this is why I do not do it. I consider it poor practice for organisms to bump it up fast, and it cannot be accomplished in many systems because it means adding a lot of extra volume.

If the sg is 1.021 and you want to get to 1.025, then even if you add double strength seawater, it takes adding 8% of the tank volume (8 gallons in a 100 gallon system) and then waiting for that to evaporate down. Not all systems can accommodate that.

Ok makes sense. But I remove water to my lowest level in my return pump section. Then when I mix up saltwater concentrate I fill to my upper level til it’s 1.025.

 

[Australian_Reef]

After a stupid miscalibration on my part I ran a reef tank at 1.018 for several weeks without a huge problem. Corals and inverts limped along but didn’t die. Once I realised (always worth double checking with calibration fluid) I replaced my Ro with salt and it took about 2 weeks to get back to 1.025. I’m still surprised things made it though as well as they did.

 

[Harry g]

After a stupid miscalibration on my part I ran a reef tank at 1.018 for several weeks without a huge problem. Corals and inverts limped along but didn’t die. Once I realised (always worth double checking with calibration fluid) I replaced my Ro with salt and it took about 2 weeks to get back to 1.025. I’m still surprised things made it though as well as they did.

I wouldn’t even have noticed unless I hadn’t bought corals and started wondering why they weren’t doing well all my soft corals were doing great and my fish looked good aswell, I was wondering why my rbta was still closed up.

 

[Australian_Reef]

I wouldn’t even have noticed unless I hadn’t bought corals and started wondering why they weren’t doing well all my soft corals were doing great and my fish looked good aswell, I was wondering why my rbta was still closed up.

Yeah about 1/2 my corals didn’t mind at all, others just sulked. I lost one shrimp but the other was fine. Couldn’t work it out because my salinity kept on testing fine… I knew it was fine.

“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so,"