Low salinity first week of tank cycle!

Eggpaul · Mar 26, 2018

150 gallon tank- 125 lbs of dead rock, 30 lbs of live rock, 80 lbs of live sand.

It has been 7 days since I added water and yesterday I noticed salinity was very low. It is at 1.010. Currently adding salt. got it up to 1.015 yesterday.

Question. Do you think the bacteria in the rock and sand survived this? Temperature was 79. Should I drop a few food pellets in there? Or a shrimp to help out?

saltyfilmfolks · Mar 26, 2018

I think you’re fine.
If your doing a fishless with ammoina you could redose , but check the ammoina and go from there. Some ghost feedingis fine too.

Eggpaul · Mar 26, 2018

saltyfilmfolks said:
I think you’re fine.
If your doing a fishless with ammoina you could redose , but check the ammoina and go from there. Some ghost feedingis fine too.

Ammonia was zero last night. I'll add a frozen shrimp today. Is that more effective than pellets?

Pntbll687 · Mar 26, 2018

You're fine!

Don't worry about it. Just slowly raise it up to where you want it to be.

saltyfilmfolks · Mar 26, 2018

Eggpaul said:
Ammonia was zero last night. I'll add a frozen shrimp today. Is that more effective than pellets?

Either way really. It’s a mostly live tank right now. Just needs some food.

AllTheCorals · Mar 26, 2018

Add salt slowly in the sump and keep mixing. With no fish or corals this is safe to do.

Eggpaul · Mar 26, 2018

AllTheCorals said:
Add salt slowly in the sump and keep mixing. With no fish or corals this is safe to do.

Can't just add in the display since I have no fish?

AllTheCorals · Mar 27, 2018

Eggpaul said:
Can't just add in the display since I have no fish?

Yes, but if you have sand it can make mixing difficult. Sump would be better. If you have no sump then I would fill a 5 gallon bucket half way and add salt. Mix and pour. Keep doing that until you hit .020. From there you can add salt water for your top off until you’re in the .023-.026 range.

If you use the bucket method don’t let it go over .030 or it may precipitate.

Eggpaul · Mar 27, 2018

AllTheCorals said:
Yes, but if you have sand it can make mixing difficult. Sump would be better. If you have no sump then I would fill a 5 gallon bucket half way and add salt. Mix and pour. Keep doing that until you hit .020. From there you can add salt water for your top off until you’re in the .023-.026 range.

If you use the bucket method don’t let it go over .030 or it may precipitate.

Okay, I will do that. I added quite a bit yesterday in the display and it hardly went up. I feel like some settled on the sand. Will it eventually dissolve??

AllTheCorals · Mar 28, 2018

Eggpaul said:
Okay, I will do that. I added quite a bit yesterday in the display and it hardly went up. I feel like some settled on the sand. Will it eventually dissolve??

Eventually it will. It’s okay for you to stir up the top layer of sand since it’s empty and there’s nothing bad in the sand yet