need emergency advice on Salinity

[mehaffydr]

I apparently left my RODI filling my sump today and I got on an airplane and left town. My Apex alerted me that Salinity is @32 now. Problem is my wife is not home and wont be returning until morning. I am guessing by the rate its falling it will be at 28 by morning. Will this level of approx. 28 kill fish?

 

[Spare time]

Do mean 32ppt? 28ppt will not kill fish. In fact that is no where near the lowest they can go

 

[DrZoidburg]

Short answer no. Other answer I hope your estimate is right.

 

[DrZoidburg]

Is it hooked up in a way where you could shut outlet off over phone?

 

[Glenner’sreef]

You may have acclimated your fish from 28 at the lfs to 35 in your own tank when you first got them. I’m sure your system is gently reversing that process.

 

[Gtinnel]

How is your system going to handle the extra water. I'd be more worried about flooding the tank and damaging my home than killing the fish, which my guess would be the fish will survive.
The fish can definitely live in that salinity easily, it's the quick salinity change that is hard on them. If I remember correctly they handle quick changes to lower salinity better than quickly changing to higher salinity.

 

[Gtinnel]

Sorry double post

 

[mehaffydr]

Over the time of 24 hour salinity dropped from 35 to 28 all issues have been corrected so now I will just let evaporation correct the salinity.
No floor damage because my sump is a 150 gallon Rubbermaid and there was minimal overflow onto a concrete floor. Fish all seam fine today.
Thanks for the replies.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Over the time of 24 hour salinity dropped from 35 to 28 all issues have been corrected so now I will just let evaporation correct the salinity.
No floor damage because my sump is a 150 gallon Rubbermaid and there was minimal overflow onto a concrete floor. Fish all seam fine today.
Thanks for the replies.

Better plan (if you are home) is to replace evaporated water with regular 35 ppt seawater. The water level will decline quite a lot to get back to 35 ppt by evaporation.

 

[mehaffydr]

I will do that when I return home but right now it’s only my wife and she does not know how to mix saltwater. I did have her add in the 25 gallons I had mixed. I will be home Friday and I will then be a little more aggressive about slowly raising salinity. I have approx 1300 gallons in this system.

 

[conlan75]

I apparently left my RODI filling my sump today and I got on an airplane and left town. My Apex alerted me that Salinity is @32 now. Problem is my wife is not home and wont be returning until morning. I am guessing by the rate its falling it will be at 28 by morning. Will this level of approx. 28 kill fish?

put an Apex solenoid on the line from your RO/DI to the sump. Then put an optical sensor in your sump at a high point. In the programming for your RO/DI solenoid, turn the solenoid off when the optical sensor is closed. Add a leak detector on the floor next to your sump for fail safe. Problem avoided. You could put the ATO in place in your sump and run your mixed salt directly in versus the RO/DI.

Here's the solenoid programming I have for my RO/DI into my mixing station
Fallback OFF
Set ON
If Mix_Lo CLOSED Then ON
If Time 00:00 to 13:00 Then OFF
If Time 13:01 to 23:59 Then ON
If Leak_F CLOSED Then OFF
If Leak_S CLOSED Then OFF
If LkMx_L CLOSED Then OFF
If LkMx_R CLOSED Then OFF
If Mix_Lv CLOSED Then OFF

 

[mehaffydr]

put an Apex solenoid on the line from your RO/DI to the sump. Then put an optical sensor in your sump at a high point. In the programming for your RO/DI solenoid, turn the solenoid off when the optical sensor is closed. Add a leak detector on the floor next to your sump for fail safe. Problem avoided. You could put the ATO in place in your sump and run your mixed salt directly in versus the RO/DI.

Here's the solenoid programming I have for my RO/DI into my mixing station
Fallback OFF
Set ON
If Mix_Lo CLOSED Then ON
If Time 00:00 to 13:00 Then OFF
If Time 13:01 to 23:59 Then ON
If Leak_F CLOSED Then OFF
If Leak_S CLOSED Then OFF
If LkMx_L CLOSED Then OFF
If LkMx_R CLOSED Then OFF
If Mix_Lv CLOSED Then OFF

Thank you Thank you
This is what I will be doing as soon as I get home

 

[mehaffydr]

Thanks everyone for the help I have been home for a few days and have the salinity slowing coming up. The lowest the salinity got to was 28.3 and I now have it back up to 31.1 and rising. Should be back to 35 in about a week.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Sounds good.

Happy reefing.