Salinity

[Cranstons12]

How does everyone bring their salinity up in their tanks? Mines been at 1.020 for a couple weeks now and i just did a 10 gallon water change woth RO water last friday! Im starting to mix my own saltwater in a 40 gallon trash can and thats at 1.002! Do i need to bring that up to 1.025/1.026 and put that in my tank to bring the tank salinity to 1.026? Ive tried the calculator sites and it just confused me even more! New to saltwater and never mixed my iwn salt so any advice would tons!!

 

[Dburr1014]

How does everyone bring their salinity up in their tanks? Mines been at 1.020 for a couple weeks now and i just did a 10 gallon water change woth RO water last friday! Im starting to mix my own saltwater in a 40 gallon trash can and thats at 1.002! Do i need to bring that up to 1.025/1.026 and put that in my tank to bring the tank salinity to 1.026? Ive tried the calculator sites and it just confused me even more! New to saltwater and never mixed my iwn salt so any advice would tons!!

Mix some salt water up that heavy on salt, like 1.030 and do a water change.
How are you checking the water?

 

[Sleeping Giant]

What size of tank, how much water do you have with the sump (if you have one) it needs to be included in the calculations

 

[Jekyl]

You don't want to raise salinity quickly. Top of using saltwater at the correct salinity until tank reaches where you want.

 

[Steve2020]

How does everyone bring their salinity up in their tanks? Mines been at 1.020 for a couple weeks now and i just did a 10 gallon water change woth RO water last friday! Im starting to mix my own saltwater in a 40 gallon trash can and thats at 1.002! Do i need to bring that up to 1.025/1.026 and put that in my tank to bring the tank salinity to 1.026? Ive tried the calculator sites and it just confused me even more! New to saltwater and never mixed my iwn salt so any advice would tons!!

What is your water volume and do you have a sump and skimmer?

 

[Cranstons12]

What is your water volume and do you have a sump and skimmer?

I have a 40 gallon breeder with no sump and the skimmer i bought doesnt fit with my lid so i took it off 3 months ago

 

[Steve2020]

You don't want to raise salinity quickly. Top of using saltwater at the correct salinity until tank reaches where you want.

That's exactly what I was going to recommend. No need to do a water change to bring it up.

 

[vetteguy53081]

What brand salt and what tester are you using ?

 

[Steve2020]

I have a 40 gallon breeder with no sump and the skimmer i bought doesnt fit with my lid so i took it off 3 months ago

I would do what jekyl recommended.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

What's your temperature

 

[Sleeping Giant]

If you're wanting to do it in one change, here it is. But you should do what @Jekyl said and take it slow

 

[Cranstons12]

If you're wanting to do it in one change, here it is. But you should do what @Jekyl said and take it slow

So the water im mixing in my trash can needs to b 1.040 correct?

 

[KStatefan]

So the water im mixing in my trash can needs to b 1.040 correct?

Just mix it to 1.026 and use it for your top off water until your tank gets to the desired salinity.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

So the water im mixing in my trash can needs to b 1.040 correct?

10 gallons of it

 

[Dburr1014]

So the water im mixing in my trash can needs to b 1.040 correct?

Don't do it in one go.
Do 5 gallons, wait a few days, then do another. Each time will raise 0.003. Add the water back in slow and dispersed so the high salanity is not concentrated in one spot.

 

[Steve2020]

I have done a lot of reading on this subject and to be honest I do not believe changing salinity by a large value at once is the smart thing to do and IMO a .003 raise in one shot is a large increase in my book. Your specific gravity is 1.020 as you mentioned which is 26.6ppt ( PSU ). A .003 increase in one shot will raise it to 30.6ppt. If you don't have any corals you may be safe but from all I have read the max daily change in salinity for fish only should not exceeded 2ppt. If you have corals, especially SPS, from what I have read the change should be far less than 2ppt to be safe. IMO if you want to go from 26.6ppt ( 1.020sg ) to 35.1ppt ( 1.0264 ), for fish only I would only increase 2ppt per day for 4.25 days. If you have corals, and if it was me I would only change the salinity by 1ppt per day for 8.5 days. Remember during the time you are changing the salinity to get to your goal you will have evaporation and unless you have an ATO you may need to adjust the values slightly so checking salinity daily is recommended IMO.
Again this is what I would do to be safe. Slow is better than too fast with almost anything with a reef tank.