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high salinity


docart30

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Is it normal that salinity in 15 gallon tank tends to rise, eventhough i add around 500 ml. of RO daily. I try to keep it around 1027 (check with refractometr). i change 2 gallons of water every 5-th day. 3-4 day after water change salinity is 1030.

is it normal for nano reef? what can i do to keep it more stable?

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MainelyReefer

Not normal for sure your salinity should stay constant preferably. First suggestion is if you plan on keeping the tank and being serious about the hobby I would strongly suggest a milwakee refractometer rather than your hydrometer. The hydrometer is just to inaccurate and is likely the cause of the salinity swings. Also topping up with exactly 500 ml of RO may cause salinity swings as well because perhaps the evaporation is slightly greater than 500ml a day. Also look into an automatic top off (ato) and it will take over the guess work in how much water to add. A model ATO I use is smart micro ato it is recommended. Those two things should solve any salinity issues assuming they are properly used and set up, also I keep my tank at 1.025-1.026 and from my understanding the numbers you were aiming for were just a bit to high. Good luck

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No its not normal.

 

Salinity needs to be stable and 1.027 is a little high. Aim for either 1.025 or 1.026.

 

When you top up, its to refill the water that was evaporated which can change.

 

When you refill your tank after a water change, find a visual mark in the tank and the next day when you manually top up, refill to that spot. Until you are confident with topping up, check your salinity every time you top up to ensure its correct.

 

My heater has a red ring on the top, thats my visual mark.

 

You don't want salinity going from 1.027 to 1.030. Salinity swings are very hard on the livestock.

 

Theres nothing wrong doing manual top ups but you need to get your salinity to a correct number(1.025) and top up every day and ensure that the number is 1.025

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Sounds like your just not adding enough water at top up to compensate for what you lost through evaporation.

 

As clown said use some sort of mark to keep the water level at. Before I got an auto top off, I simply used a black marker to draw a small line on the side, and just made sure water level stayed at that mark.

 

I keep my tanks at 35ppt which is roughly 1.026 sg,

 

 

I was not interested in auto top offs for a very long time, and finally caved in and got one, and they are worth the money, keeps the tank more stable vs topping off manually once a day, and I don't have to worry about forgetting to top off, for the relative low cost, they make life easier.

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