Salinity Issue

[TAC]

I recently set up an 80-gallon tank and used Red Sea Salt. I followed the instructions, which said to mix it in a bucket for no more than 4 hours at 77°F. When I tested the bucket, the salinity was 1.060. After adding it to the tank and letting it cycle for 3 days, the salinity dropped to 1.000. I then added another pound of salt, let it cycle for another 3 days, but the salinity is still reading 1.000.

What could be causing this, and what should I do to get the correct salinity level?

 

[Reef.]

Either evaporation, a leak if you have an ato but most likely you are reading the salinity incorrectly, most devices are tricky to read correctly.

Do yourself a favour and buy a Tropic marin hydrometer, perfect reading everytime, you may not want to use it every time to test your water as they are a little awkward to use (I use mine all the time, very easy to use once you get it down) you can use it just to check your main device every now and again is reading correctly

 

[TAC]

Either evaporation, a leak if you have an ato but most likely you are reading the salinity incorrectly, most devices are tricky to read correctly.

Do yourself a favour and buy a Tropic marin hydrometer, perfect reading everytime, you may not want to use it every time to test your water as they are a little awkward to use (I use mine all the time, very easy to use once you get it down) you can use it just to check your main device every now and again is reading correctly

I do have running 25g. I have been checked with apex, hanna and 2 different manual ATCs. Everything is normal on my 25g tank 1.025 except this one.

 

[Reef.]

I do have running 25g. I have been checked with apex, hanna and 2 different manual ATCs. Everything is normal on my 25g tank 1.025 except this one.

Salt just doesn’t disappear, it has to be your salinity reading is incorrect , either you are reading it incorrectly or the device is giving the wrong reading.

If no ato fitted to the tank and you haven’t added fresh rodi water, if anything the reading should have gone up not down in 3 days…what’s Sherlock's saying…When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

 

[TAC]

I am not running any ATO. I just added RO water. And mixed it with mixed salt water.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Do you have calibration solution on hand? I would use that and calibrate your refractometers just to be safe.

 

[W31Olds]

Adding 1 pound of salt to 80 gallons that reads near 1.000 is not going to do much. What size bucket did you use to mix it in? For an 80 gallon tank you would need about 1/2 a bucket of salt to mix up that much water.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

The salinity device is seriously in error.

What are you using exactly, and how did you calibrate it?

 

[Pod_01]

I followed the instructions, which said to mix it in a bucket for no more than 4 hours at 77°F. When I tested the bucket, the salinity was 1.060.

How much salt did you use for the 80gal tank?

If I understand you mixed one batch/ bucket. How big was the bucket?

Salinity of 1 suggested there is minimal to no salt in the 80gal tank…

 

[TAC]

Just mozed it with 5 gallon bucket. I went for 1/2 cup per gallon of water. Which makes almost 140/145g per cup so in total we are talking about roughly over 2.8 pound.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Nothing can explain the results except bad salinity measurement.

 

[johnb304]

I just recently set up a new 120 gallon and used the Red Sea salt. I read online to use 1.6lbs or 2.5 cups per 5 gallon of RODI water. I mixed in 32 gallon brute trash cans with 30 gallon water and 15 cups of salt and my salinity came out right around 1.026 or 35ppt

 

[chelltom]

Could a higher temp result in lower salinity reading? Just a thought

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Could a higher temp result in lower salinity reading? Just a thought

No. It read 1.060 then 1.000.

 

[Reef.]

Could a higher temp result in lower salinity reading? Just a thought

No…but if using a hydrometer then temp would affect the reading but the salinity would be the same in th actually water, just the method used to get the salinity might give the incorrect salinity with different devices.