Salinity level WAY too high

[nereefpat]

Lots and lots of posts here, but I wanted to add a couple things.

1. Be sure about your salinity measurement before you make any drastic changes.
2. There is no reason to add salt to your tank with the water changes. Just take out saltwater, and add RODI.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

I feel like at the point it’s at now it’s doing more damage being so high then with a quick change. And they’ve only been in there a few hours. Maybe not all the way to 1.025 but at least to like 1.03 and then go more gradual

Here is what I would do over the course of 3 hours for around 40 gallons of water. Remember tide changes for shallow rock during heavy rain can affect the salinity in the wild quite a bit and stuff still lives.

Make 6 removes and adds every 30 minutes.

1st would remove 2.5g of tank water and add in 2.5 of rodi. Should take you to 1.036

2nd would be test salinity first. If close to 1.036, then do 2.75g

Continue this 3 more times to a total of 5 remove/adds. You will need to increase the amount removed and added by about .25 gallons each change. It should be around 1.027 or 1.028. Then only a gallon or 2 swap would be needed to correct to 1.026 at the end.

Again, if doing this, test salinity before each remove/add.

If actual water is less than 40, step the amount down for remove/add.

 

[JosephM]

Lots and lots of posts here, but I wanted to add a couple things.

1. Be sure about your salinity measurement before you make any drastic changes.
2. There is no reason to add salt to your tank with the water changes. Just take out saltwater, and add RODI.

The only reason behind adding saltwater back is because I don’t have hardly any RO water left in storage and this water is only 1.020 so it’ll still bring it down

 

[JosephM]

Here is what I would do over the course of 3 hours for around 40 gallons of water. Remember tide changes for shallow rock during heavy rain can affect the salinity in the wild quite a bit and stuff still lives.

Make 6 removes and adds every 30 minutes.

1st would remove 2.5g of tank water and add in 2.5 of rodi. Should take you to 1.036

2nd would be test salinity first. If close to 1.036, then do 2.75g

Continue this 3 more times to a total of 5 remove/adds. You will need to increase the amount removed and added by about .25 gallons each change. It should be around 1.027 or 1.028. Then only a gallon or 2 swap would be needed to correct to 1.026 at the end.

Again, if doing this, test salinity before each remove/add.

If actual water is less than 40, step the amount down for remove/add.

Okay. That is great. Thank you for that!

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

The only reason behind adding saltwater back is because I don’t have hardly any RO water left in storage and this water is only 1.020 so it’ll still bring it down

Thought you were also due for a WC...?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Okay. That is great. Thank you for that!

Just be sure to test before each add and remove. You can then adjust the amount of sw removed and rodi added so it is only about .002 to .003 a change.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

The only reason behind adding saltwater back is because I don’t have hardly any RO water left in storage and this water is only 1.020 so it’ll still bring it down

Let me do some math on this lol. How much 1.020 water do you have?

 

[JosephM]

Thought you were also due for a WC...?

It was already mixed. I had RO saltwater but not straight RO

 

[JosephM]

Let me do some math on this lol. How much 1.020 water do you have?

About 9 gal

 

[Hincapiej4]

High Precision Hydrometer

Ensure that your equipment is reading correctly and your aquarium is at the right salinity with Tropic Marin's High Precision Hydrometer. Many tank inhabitants are sensitive even to minor changes of the water conditions. Unfortunately as we've all experienced, salinity reading equipment as...

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Just get one of these.....you can then make water to calibrate your digitals with this...

 

[Eagle_Steve]

About 9 gal

40 gallons total volume right? Or 40 tank with rock and such?

 

[JosephM]

40 gallons total volume right? Or 40 tank with rock and such?

40 gal total volume

 

[Eagle_Steve]

40 gal total volume

Of 40 gallons of actual water, 9 gallons of 1.020 used to replace 9 gallons of 1.038 would bring the tank to just hair under 1.034.

 

[polyppal]

I’m kinda confused now. I zero it out with distilled water. Test with calibration fluid (1.025) and it read 1.026, did this all again read 1.027... why is this expensive tester reading off right out of the box

Refractometers have to be calibrated with RO water before use, they dont come calibrated. Are you premixing your salt/water in another container or adding salt straight to tank? If it hasnt been mixed for several hours before hand it will prob fluctuate wildly while it properly dissolves.

 

[JosephM]

Refractometers have to be calibrated with RO water before use, they dont come calibrated. Are you premixing your salt/water in another container or adding salt straight to tank? If it hasnt been mixed for several hours before hand it will prob fluctuate wildly while it properly dissolves.

This salt has been mixing in my tank and sump for at least a week so I don’t think it’s that. It’s just my dumb self that bought a refractometer for being cheap instead of doing more research

 

[JosephM]

Of 40 gallons of actual water, 9 gallons of 1.020 used to replace 9 gallons of 1.038 would bring the tank to just hair under 1.034.

Okay that is good to know. Thank you for all of this math! I’ll do 5 gallon water changes with this every 30 min and then switch to RO to get me the rest of the way

 

[Eagle_Steve]

You can supplement purified water for rodi with little to no affect to the rock. Most purified water has a little calcium and mag added for taste lol. Not much though. I used the purified Walmart water in my work tank for over 2 years before it got moved to the house, as I work from home now.

Just be sure it shows as “filtered through reverse osmosis”.

 

[JosephM]

You can supplement purified water for rodi with little to no affect to the rock. Most purified water has a little calcium and mag added for taste lol. Not much though. I used the purified Walmart water in my work tank for over 2 years before it got moved to the house, as I work from home now.

Just be sure it shows as “filtered through reverse osmosis”.

How about distilled water?

 

[Eagle_Steve]

How about distilled water?

Distilled water will work as well. The distillation process typically removes 98-99% of everything lol.

 

[Eagle_Steve]

Ohh, just thought of this. If you have a tds meter, check your distilled water. If it is 1-2 tds an aquarium pump and some justly rigging can be used to run it through your di resin, just to be 100% sure all is filtered out.

But for just cycling the tank/curing the rock and getting it back right, distilled or purified should work fine. Neither typically have nitrates, phosphates or anything nasty left in them. If using purified, just make sure they didn’t add fluoride back in.