Advice please

[Jilly92]

Some of you may know I've been running my tanks at 1.015 at the highest and 1.010 at the lowest for the past 6 months (I'm an idiot and didn't calibrate my refractometer). That being said, I've been slowly raising my salinity and have gotten it to 1.023. I switched up salts this week to the fluval sea mix and it definitely elevated my numbers in basic elements. My question is should I keep raising the salinity to 1.026? I'm using redsea test kit and seachem for po4 and api for ph,no4,ammonia.

 

[Garf]

Are you 100% positive your refractometer is now correct?

 

[Jilly92]

Are you 100% positive your refractometer is now correct?

Yes I bought the calibration solution

 

[Jilly92]

Some of you may know I've been running my tanks at 1.015 at the highest and 1.010 at the lowest for the past 6 months (I'm an idiot and didn't calibrate my refractometer). That being said, I've been slowly raising my salinity and have gotten it to 1.023. I switched up salts this week to the fluval sea mix and it definitely elevated my numbers in basic elements. My question is should I keep raising the salinity to 1.026? I'm using redsea test kit and seachem for po4 and api for ph,no4,ammonia.

Po4 is .08 not .8

 

[sp1187]

are you using an auto top off?

 

[Jilly92]

are you using an auto top off?

No

 

[Garf]

Po4 is .08 not .8

I don’t know what Alk, Cal and Mag are on your new salt but if they are lower than your tank numbers, you could carry on slowly increasing salinity with water changes, not reducing top off. However,Lots of folks run it a bit low, I think.

 

[sp1187]

No

Neither do I, so I mix at 23 to 24 so it only gets to 26 max in the DT with evaporation.

 

[Jilly92]

I don’t know what Alk, Cal and Mag are on your new salt but if they are lower than your tank numbers, you could carry on slowly increasing salinity with water changes, not reducing top off. However,Lots of folks run it a bit low, I think.

What do you mean not reducing top off?

 

[Jilly92]

Neither do I, so I mix at 23 to 24 so it only gets to 26 max in the DT with evaporation.

Oh ya. So it's probably good where it's at then.

 

[Garf]

What do you mean not reducing top off?

I made the assumption you have increased the salinity by adding salt water when the tank evaporates. This in turn will increase Alk, Cal and Mag if its not consumed. I would actually mix up some of your salt and test it instead of relying on packaging info. If the packet is correct, water changes will actually bring your high Alk, Cal, Mag tank numbers down over time, whist still increasing salinity if you still wish to do so.

 

[Garf]

Neither do I, so I mix at 23 to 24 so it only gets to 26 max in the DT with evaporation.

You get 10% tank volume evaporation? What, a day?

 

[Jilly92]

I made the assumption you have increased the salinity by adding salt water when the tank evaporates. This in turn will increase Alk, Cal and Mag if its not consumed. I would actually mix up some of your salt and test it instead of relying on packaging info. If the packet is correct, water changes will actually bring your high Alk, Cal, Mag tank numbers down over time, whist still increasing salinity if you still wish to do so.

Oh ya I've been doing waterchanges to raise salinity but this last time I did top off with sw. But is it going to hurt the corals or fish?