Salinity help

[MasterBacon]

I add Salt to RO water

What is the Salinity of the water you are "making" to add to the tank?

 

[rvlcf]

On a 37 gallon tank you could just pull out a gallon of tank water, add salt to it, mix it well, and slowly pour it back in to the tank. Do that once a day until you get to the reading you want.
Just don't make any drastic salinity changes.

 

[skybears]

I am still pretty new to the saltwater tank hobby. So have had my tank for about 6 months, everything good. I checked my salinity after a water change over the weekend and it was around .016. Added more salt a little at a time to the point it should go back to where it should be. I even changed out my hydrometer and not much boost. Now I've lost an arrow crab. I'm parnoid that my salinity is too high yet it's reading low. Does it take time to raise the level or is something else wrong?

Hi first off I'd like to say welcome to reef2reef I hope you enjoy the site and all the wonderful people don't take the time and patience to Educators in the Salt Water World please ask as many questions as you want there's never a stupid question, we also love pictures lots of pictures again we love to help out on anything that you have questions on everybody is there to work together to make sure you have a positive saltwater experience again welcome to reef2reef

 

[Acronuts]

Oh Whew! I'm glad. I made that mistake about 10 years ago when I first started out. It kills me today to think about it and what I did to those poor fish. Anyway! The fact that your adding a very small amount at a time, the salinity will raise very slowly as well. Also, it will take time for that small amount to work it's way around the tank and mix in thoroughly. So, you add a 1/4 cup and wait about 30-45 minutes before taking a measure. You wont see a lot of difference (if anything) with a swingarm though, with each 1/4 cup. It would take a few for a swingarm to register it, I'm sure

Hey melypr1985,
A quick question:
1/4 cup to about how many gallons of top off are you recommending here?

 

[jenreefer]

soak your swing arm in some vinegar to release the salt creep that affects how easily the arm can swing. They get crusted up pretty fast.

 

[melypr1985]

Hey melypr1985,
A quick question:
1/4 cup to about how many gallons of top off are you recommending here?

That was a long time ago. I'll have to read through the thread again to get a sense of what we were talking about.

 

[melypr1985]

Hey melypr1985,
A quick question:
1/4 cup to about how many gallons of top off are you recommending here?

They were saying that they were adding more saltwater to their tank a 1/4 cup at a time to raise the salinity instead of just topping off with it. I was telling them to go ahead and do it their way, but to wait 30 minutes for it to all mix in before measuring and leaving a warning that the swing arm hydrometer probably wouldn't register a difference right away.