Salinity dropped significantly, are my corals doomed?

Ennvi

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Crisis mode right now. I upgraded my tank from a 35 to a 55, and made the mistake of having a friend mix my new saltwater for me. He put the wrong amount of salt in, and my salinity is now 1.015. ****. Corals are definitely upset, one in particular is starting to melt off the skeleton (I posted earlier before checking salinity. I'm an idiot, I know.)
Am I screwed? can it be saved? am I going to lose my reef? Salinity swings are dangerous, but are they more dangerous than levels this low?
 
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Ennvi

Ennvi

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Start mixing some 1.026 now. You will be doing W/C's tonight. I don't know how fast you can safely correct SG. Someone will be a long soon. But get water ready.
yep I've got it mixing now, time for a sleepless night
 

Townes_Van_Camp

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yep I've got it mixing now, time for a sleepless night
I'm not an expert. But I'd be doing the WC and trying to get it to 1.021 for now. but that's a huge swing


I believe the preferred fix here is drip in salt water over a few hours (5-10) until you hit your mark.

Good luck tonight.
 
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Ennvi

Ennvi

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can you separate your corals in a separate bucket with tank water then mix a bucket of 1.021-1.022 and drip the corals till the salinity matches while you do WC on DT?
i could try, at least with the corals that seem affected. some are doing okay but a couple of my more fragile corals are looking rough
 

Millsaps2378

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i could try, at least with the corals that seem affected. some are doing okay but a couple of my more fragile corals are looking rough
I gotcha. I'm no expert but that could probably help you from having such a huge swing with your corals then get your tank back to 1.026 and drip the corals again to get them to the tank slinity
 

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Professional idiot on a closed course, I accidently left a valve open when making a tub of RODI (60g) and raw water ran into my system, dropped my salinity to 1.019, from 1.024.

Not knowing what to do, I added salt to my sump via the sock filter and taking readings from the display until I saw salinity rise to 1.023. It took me about an hour and a half. I do not suggest anyone do this, I may have just gotten lucky, but I know some who dip stuff in RO, that has to be way more "shocking" to the coral than a drop in salinity would be, and in the ocean, it is not all a perfect 1.026, there are fluctuations also and coral survive and thrive there.


Sometimes I think maybe my coral are a lot tougher than I give them credit for.
 

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