How to safely increase salinity in a small tank

[John J in Pickens]

I hadn't really given it much thought, but my little 10-gallon tank where I've kept two Clownfish for the past 7 years has a salinity of 1.020 (I tested it today). The seawater I will use for my BioCube 16 that I will buy from my LFS has a salinity level of 1.024. How can I safely increase the salinity in my fish tank between now and when I get my BioCube ready so my clowns will be used to the higher salinity?

 

[bushdoc]

Generally fish tolerate decrease of salinity better than increase, so you you should go really slow especially if you have corals or inverts in your current tank as those cannot osmoregulate as well as fish can.
One way of slowly increasing salinity is increasing it during water changes, by replacing water taken from DT with new saltwater of higher salinity.
If you have ATO, you can also add salt to it and it will slowly increase salinity in your DT. You would have to do some calculations. I would balance it over several days if fish only and even longer with corals/inverts.

 

[collinnelson9]

You won’t have to raise the salinity in your current set up. 10-15 minutes of drip acclimation will do the job. When I was working out of town for a month and had family take care of my tank it was at 1.032 when I came back and when I left it was at 1.026 and my fish were fine. There are people out there who won’t even drip acclimate and most fish stores I’ve been to they run the fish only tanks at 1.019.

 

[Hemmdog]

Top off with saltwater once a day until you reach your target salinity

 

[bushdoc]

You won’t have to raise the salinity in your current set up. 10-15 minutes of drip acclimation will do the job. When I was working out of town for a month and had family take care of my tank it was at 1.032 when I came back and when I left it was at 1.026 and my fish were fine. There are people out there who won’t even drip acclimate and most fish stores I’ve been to they run the fish only tanks at 1.019.

I do agree, but to a point only. Going from higher to lower salinity is less stressful, but opposite is not necessarily true.
Also when you get fish from LFS or mail order, you don't really have a choice and you should acclimate fish fast, but in case of John, I would recommend doing it slowly and not stressing fish.

 

[Hooz]

Top off with saltwater once a day until you reach your target salinity

This right here is the answer.

Add a cup or to of premixed saltwater to the tank. It won't raise the salinity much (if even noticeable) when you add it, but as the water evaporates, it leaves the salt behind.

If you use an ATO on the 10g, just use premixed saltwater instead of RO water. Monitor for a few days and switch back to RO when you reach the salinity you're after.

 

[John J in Pickens]

Thanks so much for the input! I will try to use a little premixed saltwater when I top off the tank (which happens about daily) and will check the salinity each day. I hope it won't stress my clownfish out too much to slowly bring p the salinity level to 1.024 from 1.019. (Dumb question time: What does "ATO" stand for?) Thanks again!

 

[muzikalmatt]

ATO = Auto Top Off

It's a device that automatically adds water to your tank at it evaporates. It helps keep a stable salinity, especially in smaller tanks.

 

[exnisstech]

Evaporation? Don't top off?
Edit: it's 10g so I assume OP had been manually topping off.