Salinity and zoa’s

Nano Gabe · Jan 22, 2020

Hey guys so for a while I was using the Milwaukee refractometer and the other day I noticed that it gave me a strange reading. Long story short it prompted me to look into things a little more and I found out my salinity was actually running at 1.024 for a while. So all my corals looked great except my zoa’s and honestly they have only been opening half way for the last month at least. So my question is could the salinity have caused this to happen? How should I go about brining it back up to 1.025?

I’m thinking to just let water evaporate until I get the 1.025 reading.

Terry Mattson · Jan 22, 2020

To bring it up add mixed saltwater to the tank. Do not know your water volume??? I have a 93 gallon system. And when my SG drops to 1.025 will add 2 cups of mixed saltwater per day until 1.026 is achieved. You have to wait a day to take reading because the tank needs to evaporate .... salt stays behind. Also, never add dry salt directly to tank.

loneboat · Jan 22, 2020

Here's a calculator which, given a known salinity and volume, calculates how much salt needs to be given to achieve a desired salinity: https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/DirectSaltCalculator.php

Terry Mattson · Jan 22, 2020

Need more info on zoa question. Dkh, calcium, magnesium, ph, phosphate, nitrate, and iodine values.

Terry Mattson · Jan 22, 2020

loneboat said:
Here's a calculator which, given a known salinity and volume, calculates how much salt needs to be given to achieve a desired salinity: https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/DirectSaltCalculator.php

Nice! Like this ....

loneboat · Jan 22, 2020

Terry Mattson said:
Nice! Like this ....

There are a ton more on there too!

https://www.hamzasreef.com/Contents/Calculators/

Nano Gabe · Jan 22, 2020

It’s a Red Sea reefer 350 so it’s 93g total I believe but after rocks and sand I would guess 88g somewhere around there. Alk is 8.6, ph 8, nitrate under 5 on API test kit I don’t test for iodine. The only thing I do to my tank is a 10g water change weekly, feed reef roids weekly and dose brightwell aminos daily. Other then that I have a fuge, skimmer, run carbon in a bag and I change filter pads every 3-4 days. Everything else in the tank LSP, sps and soft coral is doing great. Zoa’s are the only issue and the issue started about a month ago I haven’t added any new frags or seen any pest. I have a yellow tang that will occasionally graze near the zoa’s or pick off their poop but I don’t think he’s the cause. As for phosphate I’ll test it latter but I’m sure it’s very low and calcium and magnesium I’ll also test tonight but I’m %100 sure if my alk is good then they will also be within normal ranges. The only thing that has been off is the salinity so I was wondering if anyone else has seen them close up in low salinity?

Terry Mattson · Jan 22, 2020

Nano Gabe said:
It’s a Red Sea reefer 350 so it’s 93g total I believe but after rocks and sand I would guess 88g somewhere around there. Alk is 8.6, ph 8, nitrate under 5 on API test kit I don’t test for iodine. The only thing I do to my tank is a 10g water change weekly, feed reef roids weekly and dose brightwell aminos daily. Other then that I have a fuge, skimmer, run carbon in a bag and I change filter pads every 3-4 days. Everything else in the tank LSP, sps and soft coral is doing great. Zoa’s are the only issue and the issue started about a month ago I haven’t added any new frags or seen any pest. I have a yellow tang that will occasionally graze near the zoa’s or pick off their poop but I don’t think he’s the cause. As for phosphate I’ll test it latter but I’m sure it’s very low and calcium and magnesium I’ll also test tonight but I’m %100 sure if my alk is good then they will also be within normal ranges. The only thing that has been off is the salinity so I was wondering if anyone else has seen them close up in low salinity?

Wow. I also have the redsea 350. And have to change those filtersock every 4 days. Lol. Anyway. I had similar problems with my zoas and after a long struggle to find root cause, my problem was low iodine. The zoas I had were great for months then started closing up. My iodine level was .01 ppm (I do about 7 gallon water change per week), seawater iodine level is .06 ppm. I dosed up my iodine and they opened up in less than 48 hours. I have found that I have to add 2 drops of brightwell iodine a week to maintain .05 to .06.

So bring your SG to 1.026 (seawater) and if all your other parameters are good than lets check your iodine.

Nano Gabe · Jan 22, 2020

Terry Mattson said:
Wow. I also have the redsea 350. And have to change those filtersock every 4 days. Lol. Anyway. I had similar problems with my zoas and after a long struggle to find root cause, my problem was low iodine. The zoas I had were great for months then started closing up. My iodine level was .01 ppm (I do about 7 gallon water change per week), seawater iodine level is .06 ppm. I dosed up my iodine and they opened up in less than 48 hours. I have found that I have to add 2 drops of brightwell iodine a week to maintain .05 to .06.

So bring your SG to 1.026 (seawater) and if all your other parameters are good than lets check your iodine.

Thanks man I’m going to look into that! What salt are you using?

Terry Mattson · Jan 22, 2020

Nano Gabe said:
Thanks man I’m going to look into that! What salt are you using?

I use fritz. Been using it for 13months. .

Nano Gabe · Jan 22, 2020

Terry Mattson said:
I use fritz. Been using it for 13months. .

I use fritz as well it would make sense that the iodine would be off then! I’ll update this post tomorrow when I check the levels.

Terry Mattson · Jan 22, 2020

Nano Gabe said:
I use fritz as well it would make sense that the iodine would be off then! I’ll update this post tomorrow when I check the levels.

Ok. Great cannot wait!

Nano Gabe · Jan 22, 2020

Tonight’s test were alk 8.6, calcium 440, mag 1410 I’m going to bring the salinity up from 1.024 to 1.025 tomorrow and also test my iodine levels.

Nano Gabe · Jan 23, 2020

so I’m still slowly bringing back up my salinity by adding extra saltwater and letting it evaporate and not topping it off but I started doing research on iodine and I’m seeing mixed results. Before I do anything I’m going to make a post to see what people say.

Terry Mattson · Jan 23, 2020

Nano Gabe said:
so I’m still slowly bringing back up my salinity by adding extra saltwater and letting it evaporate and not topping it off but I started doing research on iodine and I’m seeing mixed results. Before I do anything I’m going to make a post to see what people say.

Ok.. changing things one at time is good. With that said, test your iodine. May or may not be the root cause; however iodine should be about .06 ppm. If low dose and if not low then it is not needed.

I have never tested freshly mixed saltwater from fritz on iodine. May do that as I follow your thread. Thing is I do like 1 gallon of fresh saltwater change a day. Not enough to replace everything with a tank full of corals, invertebrates. I use dosing to keep the tank in balance. The goal for me is stability and slow movement of any water parameters. So I chose to not do the big water changes.

Nano Gabe · Jan 23, 2020

Terry Mattson said:
Ok.. changing things one at time is good. With that said, test your iodine. May or may not be the root cause; however iodine should be about .06 ppm. If low dose and if not low then it is not needed.

I have never tested freshly mixed saltwater from fritz on iodine. May do that as I follow your thread. Thing is I do like 1 gallon of fresh saltwater change a day. Not enough to replace everything with a tank full of corals, invertebrates. I use dosing to keep the tank in balance. The goal for me is stability and slow movement of any water parameters. So I chose to not do the big water changes.

Yeah man I like the idea of doing 1 gallon a day but I honestly don’t have the time for that but I love the idea of it! Very interesting! I was looking for a test kit at my LFS today and they don’t have one so I’m going to have to order online any particular brand you recommend?

Terry Mattson · Jan 23, 2020

Nano Gabe said:
Yeah man I like the idea of doing 1 gallon a day but I honestly don’t have the time for that but I love the idea of it! Very interesting! I was looking for a test kit at my LFS today and they don’t have one so I’m going to have to order online any particular brand you recommend?

Red sea iodine pro.

I had a tank 30 years ago and did the weekly then twice month massive waterchange. Had to match everything. So when I set up this tank I put a small pump to the uv light and put the output on a split pvc with a valve. Have two 1 gallon containers, red and green. Each morning I fill the green container with new saltwater and using the pump plumbing for the uv sterilizer fill the red one to the same volume. Takes 3 minutes. I do the water changes while the frozen food melts to feed the fish each morning.

Terry Mattson · Jan 24, 2020

I purchased the red sea pro iodine kit from brs. Once your dialled in then I test like every 6 to 10 weeks.

Nano Gabe · Jan 24, 2020

Okay I’ll order that one then and you said you were adding only two drops per week?

Terry Mattson · Jan 24, 2020

Nano Gabe said:
Okay I’ll order that one then and you said you were adding only two drops per week?

Once you have the test results then you will have a guide. I was like .01 so I added 4 drops. I then added 2 drops next day for a total of six. Waited over night and retested and was .06. And the zoas openned up .... I dose iodine once a week with two drops total. I am going to test today my iodine tank level and fresh fritz salt water and will post the results. When you use that test kit you must temperature aquamate the reference sample. Just follow directions. Also, the jugs I use for water changes are attached.