Lfs water salinity is low

SaltHound · Jul 21, 2018

So I have duplicated the Youtuber "Queen of Reef" setup to the very last detail simply because her tank is exactly what I would like mine to be. After accumulating all of the gear I went to my lfs last night and bought my live sand, live rock, and water. Tank cleared up nicely this morning but salinity is 1.017 on a calibrated refractometer. I have added a half cup of Instant Ocean Reef Crystal's directly to the water. How long should I wait to test again and what kind of increase should I expect for a half cup in a 32 gallon tank?

Zeal · Jul 21, 2018

I wouldnt add salt directly to the tank.

Are you making your own salt?

If so make it a bit more concentrated the normal and do a water change and put the concentrated salt water in the tank. Same thing happened to me when I first started. Dont add anything live yet either

Crabs McJones · Jul 21, 2018

To raise your salinity from 1.017 to 1.026 at 78 degree water temp you would have to add approximately 6 and a half more cups of salt. I assume the tank has no livestock in it whatsoever. What I'd do is add in 6 cups, see where that puts you, and if needed then add that extra cup. If the tank is empty you can do it all at once, wait approximately 1/2 hour and turn all your pumps to their highest setting to help the salt mix in. If the tank does have livestock in it you'll have to approach this a lot differently. You'll have to do a series of small water changes to slowly bring your salinity back up.

SaltHound · Jul 24, 2018

Crabs Mcjones said:
To raise your salinity from 1.017 to 1.026 at 78 degree water temp you would have to add approximately 6 and a half more cups of salt. I assume the tank has no livestock in it whatsoever. What I'd do is add in 6 cups, see where that puts you, and if needed then add that extra cup. If the tank is empty you can do it all at once, wait approximately 1/2 hour and turn all your pumps to their highest setting to help the salt mix in. If the tank does have livestock in it you'll have to approach this a lot differently. You'll have to do a series of small water changes to slowly bring your salinity back up.

Little follow up to this because my mistake may help someone else. I called my lfs and they said to bring in a sample with my refractometer. Turns out it wasn't calibrated correctly. I used RODI to bring it to 1.00 instead of calibration solution. Live and learn. Glad I didn't blow that one completely. Thanks for the help.

Queenofreef · Jun 7, 2019

NAustin0401 said:
So I have duplicated the Youtuber "Queen of Reef" setup to the very last detail simply because her tank is exactly what I would like mine to be. After accumulating all of the gear I went to my lfs last night and bought my live sand, live rock, and water. Tank cleared up nicely this morning but salinity is 1.017 on a calibrated refractometer. I have added a half cup of Instant Ocean Reef Crystal's directly to the water. How long should I wait to test again and what kind of increase should I expect for a half cup in a 32 gallon tank?

Wow [emoji173]️[emoji173]️[emoji173]️[emoji173]️ I feel honored. Thank you so much!!!

Wait 1-2 hours to check again. Better to mix salt into rodi water and add 1 cup of it every hour (for some reason LFS taught me this trick and it works really quickly, compared to doing a WC, don’t ask me why ha)

Goodair · Jun 7, 2019

NAustin0401 said:
Little follow up to this because my mistake may help someone else. I called my lfs and they said to bring in a sample with my refractometer. Turns out it wasn't calibrated correctly. I used RODI to bring it to 1.00 instead of calibration solution. Live and learn. Glad I didn't blow that one completely. Thanks for the help.

This, Good thing you had this checked. You will have to recalibrate it from time to time.