Major salinity issue

Greenstarfish03

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My return pump was slowly leaking for about a weak and my neptune apex ato was replacing the lost salt water with freshwater. I noticed the tank wasn't opening up.well.today so i.went to the basement where the sump.is located and checked the salinity and it was a horrific 18 and it usualy stays about 34. I mixed up about 15 gallons of double strength salt water and added it about 5 galons at a time over a couple of hours which raised the salinity to about 21. I have 30g of water getting ready now. What is the best way to raise the salinity safety but as quick as possible?
 

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I may me be in the minority, but I would get it back up to at least 1.022 (I don’t know off the top of my head what ppm that would be) today, and then raise it up to 1.026/35ppm over a few days. I think you’re going to do more damage by letting your corals sit in such low salinity for days while you raise it than you would by raising it up to the lower end of the range. Stability and slow changes are great when they’re intentional, the shocking change has already happened, it’s not like everything’s grown accustomed to this lower salinity.

Edit: and the quickest way to raise your salinity is to essentially do what you’re doing (adding much higher salinity water), you don’t want to add salt directly to the tank/sump.
 

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You are doing good with the way you are bring up salinity up now. Go slow for the next 4 days until you are back up to 34. I would also suggest checking your salinity with a refractometer also to make sure.
 
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You are doing good with the way you are bring up salinity up now. Go slow for the next 4 days until you are back up to 34. I would also suggest checking your salinity with a refractometer also to make sure.
Thanks. I always use a refractometer. I checked it like three times when I first read it bc it was lower then I've ever seen it and it always stays dead on. The tank is 100g with about 75g in the sump so it takes a lot of water to make this kind of a change and everything looked fine in the sump at first. I was really perplexes for bit trying to figure out how this happened.
 
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Greenstarfish03

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I'm thinking that this morning I shoukd take some water out and put more super salty water in like a water change which for me is about 30g to decrease the water volume some. I put 15g of super salty water last night and it only brought it up a little above 20.
 
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Greenstarfish03

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I'm thinking that this morning I shoukd take some water out and put more super salty water in like a water change which for me is about 30g to decrease the water volume some. I put 15g of super salty water last night and it only brought it up a little above 20.
When I checked it this am after letting it run w the water I added last night it was at 1.017. I have 30g of double strength water getting ready. I plan to basicaly remove 30g of water as if I'm doing a. Water change Then add say 15g back in wait an hour test the salinity and then based on how that goes add the rest back in at double strength or if it's closer dilute it some.
 

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I would add salt straight into the sump where the drains enter about a 1/2 cup slowly at a time.
Test after the first 1 or 2 and you should be able to tell how much salt you will have to add.
Then I would add it every 3 or four hours until the salinity is back to normal..
 

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I would add salt straight into the sump where the drains enter about a 1/2 cup slowly at a time.
Test after the first 1 or 2 and you should be able to tell how much salt you will have to add.
Then I would add it every 3 or four hours until the salinity is back to normal..
I do the same, I am glad someone else does the same. :rolleyes: :D I usually add my make up salt to my filter sock/return section in the sump. I use this calculator for how much link. The calculator gets me pretty close. Use Zero for the water impurity in salt mix.
 

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I would add salt straight into the sump where the drains enter about a 1/2 cup slowly at a time.
Test after the first 1 or 2 and you should be able to tell how much salt you will have to add.
Then I would add it every 3 or four hours until the salinity is back to normal..
I've been known to pour salt directly into my skimmer chamber, I mean it is basically a giant mixer.
 

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Interesting thread here. Normally I'm kind of like raise it back up slowly, but in this case I'm thinking it needs to be raised up quite a bit pretty quickly. I'd be raising it a bit every few hours for awhile I think. Not all at once, but still a pretty steady increase.

That said, I have no idea how to actually deal with this extreme of a problem directly. So I'm following with interest.
 
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Greenstarfish03

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I ended up raising it to 1.017 the first night then the next morning I got it up to 1.020. Then last night I got it up to 1.022 and I just added another 15g of super salt water so I suspect I'm getting close now. I hope everything makes it. All looks OK so far. Some things look markedly better already.

Thanks for your input. I learned some things if I get in this situation again. I never thought about adding salt directly to to sump, skimmer or sock.
 

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Do you have a ATO with a ATO container? I would add salt water to the ATO and let it replace it. I agree that it needs to be brought quickly, AND, gently at the same time, but to quick can create other issues. I have had issues with low salinity on 2 fronts. I did a dumb move and lowered my salinity in a instance, but I quickly realized the problem and did a massive water change to bring up the salinity to with .10. I have also had issues where the change were done over a longer period, and thus, I had to raise it slower, thus the ATO method. When I say faster or slower, it is a matter of a few days. To raise it instantly, the problem and solution could be done over a few hours, anything longer means the slower approach...aka...ATO method.
 
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Greenstarfish03

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Do you have a ATO with a ATO container? I would add salt water to the ATO and let it replace it. I agree that it needs to be brought quickly, AND, gently at the same time, but to quick can create other issues. I have had issues with low salinity on 2 fronts. I did a dumb move and lowered my salinity in a instance, but I quickly realized the problem and did a massive water change to bring up the salinity to with .10. I have also had issues where the change was done over a longer period, and thus, I had to raise it lower, thus the ATO method.
That is another idea I never thought of. So many ways to do this. In this case the decrease was pretty slow over about 9 days so I brought it back up a little quick the first day or two then backed down and raised it with about 15g of super salt water twice a day. I will lost results back in a week or so.
 

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That is another idea I never thought of. So many ways to do this. In this case the decrease was pretty slow over about 9 days so I brought it back up a little quick the first day or two then backed down and raised it with about 15g of super salt water twice a day. I will lost results back in a week or so.
Just monitor it, and remember that the biggest causes of issues is US ALL chasing numbers. PLEASE don't chase numbers. If you are already within a few of your chosen salinity parameter, then raise it slowly from there.

Corals may show a little stress from the change, meaning a little browning out and retraction and such, but chasing numbers will further the stress. ;)
 

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