Quick drop in salinity.....

[lazyreefer]

Hellooooooo,

Woke up with 15 gallons or so of tank water on the floor.....

https://www.reef2reef.com/forums/f30/confused-about-check-valve-39934.html


My salinity dropped from 1.025 down to 1.021 because of the addition of 20-25 gallons of RO/DI that was dumped into it. (175 gallons total system) I immediately siphoned out 20 gallons out of the tank and replaced with fresh SW I had mixing up.

I know you don't want to raise salt content by more than .002 per day, but is it better for my corals and/or fish to raise the levels back to 1.026 within the next three days or just let evap takes its course which will bring the salt back up in a week or 10 days ?? (I'm assuming fish is better slow but not sure about SPS, zoas, anemones, inverts)

Secondly, what about Alk, I'm assuming let the Alk come up naturally through the addition of fresh SW rather than dosing. Should I stop my daily dosing or should I continue ?? Alk dropped from 8.8 ~ down to 7.8 this morning. PH was around 7.8 too but that fluctuates anyways.

Thanks

 

[wicked demon]

1.021-22 is actually better condition for most corals anyway and if they look fine after they .004 change you could just bring it back up through top offs with salt water till you reached the desired salinity., use an anti syphon hole in your return instead of a check valve.

 

[lazyreefer]

Thanks Wicked, I was under the assumption that fish were better at lower levels because there is more oxygen in the water, but corals were the reason most hobbyists kept their tanks at 1.024 ~ 1.026 because they grow and color up better at higher salt content.

I'll keep an eye on them, not much I can do anyways I guess, the damage if any has been done. I'm gonna go with the hole trick, I'll figure out some way to keep the water from splashing all over the place.

Thanks again!

 

[RBursek]

No confussion of a check valve in a fish tank, they will fail just a matter of when!!! I think most reefers keep there SG higher is to get the maximum chemical concentration out of there salts, but NSW is on the average1.0264.

 

[stunreefer]

1.021-22 is actually better condition for most corals anyway

According to what/whom?

Corals are (generally) found in ranges of 1.024-1.027. They can likely handle the lower specific gravity (some better than others), but by no means should they be kept at that level long term.

Dropping salinity isn't as stressful as raising salinity, at least for fish. I wouldn't think corals are big one either way

So it sounds like you will be topping off with SW rather than FW, correct?

 

[lazyreefer]

I like your avatar Stunreefer....

Seen that fish at LFS here in St.Louis just the other day. Rumored to have a 1200.00 price tag unless they were joshing me......its an Angelfish right ?

 

[stunreefer]

Thanks lazyreefer!

Yes angelfish, it's an Apolemichthys arcuatus, or Bandit angelfish. They're a deepwater fish that takes a lot of time to (properly) collect and decompress, so they're price tag is generally high. It wouldn't surprise me that it cost that much through certain LFS depending on the amount of time they put into acclimating it to captivity (and how "high" their prices normally are), and how long they've had it for... with that said that price is still a bit high

 

[NaClH2O_StL]

I was about to ask the same question.... what kind of fish it was until I ran across this thread. Awesome pic.