Best Methods in raising salinity

[CFQTPye]

Hello All!

Just put my live rock and mixed my salt water with Tropic Marin Pro Reef Salt and RO water and am cycling it for 24 hours prior to adding Bacter7.. so tonight's the night. I checked my salinity last night after running the tank for an hour and found the specific gravity to be 1.026 (perfect) when I checked it this morning, I found it to 1.022 what are the best methods to raise the salinity of the tank? Take water from the tank, dissolve the salt and add to tank??

I'll be doing all my measurements again tonight fully prior to Microbacter7 to get a baseline but it seems I have to raise the salinity first.

Oh and here's some shots of my very first live rock construction... any suggestions on improving? I focused on having a lot of nooks and crannies for fish and water current etc. I'm thinking (in hindsight) perhaps that flat rock on the bottom may be an area that will trap bad things there is space between the sand and rock for things to hide...

Thanks in advance,
Corinne

 

[labas39]

My system is SPS dominated so I change my parameters slowly. That said, I raise my salinity by using salt water for my auto top off. Once the salinity is back on track, I go back to RO/DI water.

 

[jolt]

I just add a little salt water directly so my ATO does not have to run. I put about 1/2 cup at a time in my 32 gallon and it will raise about .1 ppt in 24 hours

 

[pickupman66]

mix a very potent gallon or so of salt water and then feed that into the system to raise it. as it is a brand new system, you can also put some in a high flow area of the sump since you have an empty system.

 

[Karen]

I would raise that flat rock a bit. Of course, I change my LR around at least once a month. If you are planning on corals you do want to think about spaces for them also. Looks good though.

 

[CFQTPye]

What would be the best approach to offer spaces for corals Karen?

Thanks!

 

[Karen]

To be honest, I am fairly new, but I make sure to leave some shelves to attach my corals to. So far, I have green star polyps, Xenia, and Yellow Zoas. The zoas have completely taken over a ledge on the top of my tank. The Xenia have a attached themselves to a rock that is not so flat and shelflike and the green star polyps are on another shelf-like rock below the zoas. I do have so e good cave structures for and my PomPom crab.

Attached is a picture of my latest scape.

 

[Karen]

Sorry, the picture is upside down of course. The zoas are on top in an upright position.