I have always liked the salinity in my tank to be in the 35 range. What I have found with my ATO is that over time my salinity begins to decline and is currently down to 32. This has bothered me so two weeks ago I turned off the ATO and started adding water manually daily but instead of fresh RODI water as the top off I have used my saltwater mixture. Over the past two weeks my salinity has slowly climbed up to 34.2 as of today. I have an Apex so I watch my salinity ongoing and it appears this slow addition of saltwater has been the answer to getting my salinity back to the place I like to keep it. However, from here moving forward I'm a bit perplexed on the best solution to keep my salinity up where I want it to be. If I continue to top off with saltwater my salinity will begin to get too high....I'm assuming.....but if I go back to using the RODI water.....once again my salinity is going to start to drop again.....I'm assuming.
I also have an AWC setup, however, I have not had it on for the past two weeks in hopes of getting my salinity back up where I want it to be. Could it be the daily small water changes that is causing the decline in salinity? It wouldn't make sense in my head because the water is constantly being replaced with 35 salinity water in the AWC.
Could it be the lack of water changes over this past two weeks and only topping off each day that has helped the salinity start to get back up where I want it to be?
My ATO reservoir is 20 gallons. Normally in two weeks although it's not completely empty it's low enough that I need to start to refill the reservoir before the pump starts to have an issue. So in my mind using approximately 18 to 19 gallons of RODI water over a two week period is a big contributing factor for the salinity dropping.
For clarification I have a Red Sea 525 XL that has a DT of 108 gallons and a sump with 31 gallons and a 5 gallon refugium that sits above the sump (originally Red Sea intended for the 5 gallon tank to be used as the ATO reservoir but I made it my fuge and set up an exterior 20 gallon ATO reservoir).
My tank has been running 8 months and I have mainly LPS corals, CUC, fish and some stars. Any advice anyone has about my desire to keep my salinity up around 35 ongoing will be greatly appreciated.
For the record.....many fellow hobbyist told me that keeping a salt tank was just as easy as my freshwater tanks....it was just going to cost more money. They were wrong.....I LOVE my tank and it's inhabitants.....but it's ALWAYS something or the other going wrong or something dying for no apparent reason. I have the Trident and ReefBot testers and my parameters seem to stay in line without any major spikes one way or the other.....but corals doing great one day.....next day.....dead as a door nail. Fish....don't even get me started there. THANKFULLY, as I knock on every wood object I can find around me, I have not experienced ick in my salt tank.....have had it numerous times in my freshwater tanks....and was told it was not if I got it in my salt tank....but when.....hopefully that won't be my situation since I've limped along this long without it. I won't even discuss the cost.....absolutely and painfully expensive....but I'm OCD and MUST have every gadget...LOL. Perhaps once my salt tank has been running for a year or two the challenges will be few and far between.....hopefully......my freshwater tanks have always been super easy....I could fill their tanks up with swamp water/toilet water or any other variation of water and they'd be fine......fresh guys are super hardy IMHO. Salt.....not so much....and certainly not "as easy" as fresh!!!...they lied to me! LOL
I also have an AWC setup, however, I have not had it on for the past two weeks in hopes of getting my salinity back up where I want it to be. Could it be the daily small water changes that is causing the decline in salinity? It wouldn't make sense in my head because the water is constantly being replaced with 35 salinity water in the AWC.
Could it be the lack of water changes over this past two weeks and only topping off each day that has helped the salinity start to get back up where I want it to be?
My ATO reservoir is 20 gallons. Normally in two weeks although it's not completely empty it's low enough that I need to start to refill the reservoir before the pump starts to have an issue. So in my mind using approximately 18 to 19 gallons of RODI water over a two week period is a big contributing factor for the salinity dropping.
For clarification I have a Red Sea 525 XL that has a DT of 108 gallons and a sump with 31 gallons and a 5 gallon refugium that sits above the sump (originally Red Sea intended for the 5 gallon tank to be used as the ATO reservoir but I made it my fuge and set up an exterior 20 gallon ATO reservoir).
My tank has been running 8 months and I have mainly LPS corals, CUC, fish and some stars. Any advice anyone has about my desire to keep my salinity up around 35 ongoing will be greatly appreciated.
For the record.....many fellow hobbyist told me that keeping a salt tank was just as easy as my freshwater tanks....it was just going to cost more money. They were wrong.....I LOVE my tank and it's inhabitants.....but it's ALWAYS something or the other going wrong or something dying for no apparent reason. I have the Trident and ReefBot testers and my parameters seem to stay in line without any major spikes one way or the other.....but corals doing great one day.....next day.....dead as a door nail. Fish....don't even get me started there. THANKFULLY, as I knock on every wood object I can find around me, I have not experienced ick in my salt tank.....have had it numerous times in my freshwater tanks....and was told it was not if I got it in my salt tank....but when.....hopefully that won't be my situation since I've limped along this long without it. I won't even discuss the cost.....absolutely and painfully expensive....but I'm OCD and MUST have every gadget...LOL. Perhaps once my salt tank has been running for a year or two the challenges will be few and far between.....hopefully......my freshwater tanks have always been super easy....I could fill their tanks up with swamp water/toilet water or any other variation of water and they'd be fine......fresh guys are super hardy IMHO. Salt.....not so much....and certainly not "as easy" as fresh!!!...they lied to me! LOL