Quick salinity drop

[Gtinnel]

This evening through a stupid mistake on my part I accidentally added around 10 gallons of freshwater into my roughly 130 gallon system, which seems to have dropped my salinity from 1.026 to 1.024 in about an hour. I didn’t see any noticeable issue with the fish or corals so I’m hopeful that it didn’t harm anything.

Im also nervous to see tomorrow if anything was harmed by the quick change when the lights come back on. I noticed the problem when the lights were getting close to going off.

Has anyone else quickly changed salinity and how did the tank take it?

 

[JCM]

That's not going to cause any harm, you're fine.

 

[mehaffydr]

That should not be a problem at all. Just let evaporation bring it back up slowly no need to hurry.

 

[jrmailo]

From what I understand, fish can tolerate salinity shift from high to low fairly comfortably (unlike from low to high) due to how they control their buoyancy.

I’m not too confident on the effect of salinity shift in coral, but I would suspect it would have a negative effect on a more sensitive species.

That said, going in from 1.026 to 1.024 in about an hour isn’t in the extreme and I imagine something similar happen in nature during tide shift.

 

[Gtinnel]

I actually had to remove some of the water not including what had overflowed my sump (apparently my sump holds about 9 extra gallons) because I am afraid the power may go out tonight and my sump would overflow more. I will probably add back in around a gallon a day of saltwater so it’ll take me about 10 days to bring it back up.

 

[Gtinnel]

Yeah I was more worried about the corals than the fish. I’m not too worried though because the corals I did see before the lights went out didn’t seem stressed by it. I am a little worried about my SPS corals though.

 

[Sean Clark]

I think you will be OK. Try not to over react.

 

[Gtinnel]

I think you will be OK. Try not to over react.

I don’t think I over reacted. All I did was fix my error that overflowed the tank and then removed that amount of water.

I will say I can see how easy it would be to immediately panic and do something detrimental to the tank when you walk by your aquarium and your socks get wet. It’s not a pleasant feeling.

 

[Roatan Reef]

1.024 to 1.026 is just fine!

 

[monkeyCmonkeyDo]

Ya if you caught it quickly and quickly corrected it your probably fine.
D

 

[IslandLifeReef]

Yeah, I agree with the others, you should be fine. If you want to bring it back up slowly with little effort, fill your ATO with salt water and let that slowly bring up the salinity. If you added 10 gallons of fresh water, then once you have added 10 gallons of salt water to your ATO, you should be back where you started.

 

[Gtinnel]

I realize the salinity probe on the apex is known to be unreliable but I really wish it would’ve worked yesterday evening, or at least not decide to recognize the salinity drop at 5am.

 

[John75116]

This evening through a stupid mistake on my part I accidentally added around 10 gallons of freshwater into my roughly 130 gallon system, which seems to have dropped my salinity from 1.026 to 1.024 in about an hour. I didn’t see any noticeable issue with the fish or corals so I’m hopeful that it didn’t harm anything.

Im also nervous to see tomorrow if anything was harmed by the quick change when the lights come back on. I noticed the problem when the lights were getting close to going off.

Has anyone else quickly changed salinity and how did the tank take it?

Hello, I did exactly the same mistake today. Finally, was it OK for your SPS ?
Thank you for your reply.

 

[Dburr1014]

This evening through a stupid mistake on my part I accidentally added around 10 gallons of freshwater into my roughly 130 gallon system, which seems to have dropped my salinity from 1.026 to 1.024 in about an hour. I didn’t see any noticeable issue with the fish or corals so I’m hopeful that it didn’t harm anything.

Im also nervous to see tomorrow if anything was harmed by the quick change when the lights come back on. I noticed the problem when the lights were getting close to going off.

Has anyone else quickly changed salinity and how did the tank take it?

Yup, done it.
No problems. Kinda like a real dumping rain storm of you think about it.

 

[Dburr1014]

Hello, I did exactly the same mistake today. Finally, was it OK for your SPS ?
Thank you for your reply.

Old thread, guess this was for you.

 

[Gtinnel]

Hello, I did exactly the same mistake today. Finally, was it OK for your SPS ?
Thank you for your reply.

Yep everything was okay with my tank. I should’ve updated the thread a day or two later.