Natural SW v Accurate Salinity-- thoughts???

JML27 · Jan 27, 2013

Hi R2R, I am new to the hobby and the forum. I have a 50g, what was a fish only tank, that is only about 4 months old. Now I have decided to make the change to a fish and reef tank. When I started the tank I bought and had delivered "natural" SW that had a salinity 1.027. My tank has been at that level ever since. Now that I am beginning a reef tank I went to a local coral store and brought in some of my water just to see what they would say. The store seems to think that .027 is too high and recommended I remove approx. 10g water and replace with RO water. Im thinking about it--- what are all of your thoughts? Also, my tank has fish in it (false per. clown, yellow tang, hippo tang, coral beauty, and gobi) if I remove/replace that big difference in salinity wont it mess with my fish? Thank you in advance. I look forward to what Im sure will be many hours on R2R.

redfishbluefish · Jan 27, 2013

I think you need to find a new LFS! Let me get this straight….you have a 50 gallon tank and they want you to replace 20% of the saltwater with RO/DI water to go from 1.027 to 1.026? Are these the same bozos that sold you two tangs for a 50 gallon tank?

You are correct that you want to lower the salinity slowly, but nowhere near ten gallons. I’m guessing that one to two gallons would drop your salinity to 1.026. I would do a quart a day, measuring after each addition, until you get down to 1.026.