Excessive salinity?

[toohipnoob]

 While I'm not new, I consider myself a noob, because I only have a 29g JBJ nano tank, but I've had it for over 8 years, going through a lot of die offs and crisis's learning the hard way, but also using the googles.  Sand bottom, 15% live rock, a few soft corals, various fish vertebrae (well used to ;o).

EXCESSIVE SALINITY?:  I buy pre-made salt water at $4/5g bucket, which seems cheaper and easier then making my own with no ROI device. I have a small protein skipper, and assorted sponges/material in the sump, small pump and a small powerhead for flow.  Lights are built into hood.  If water level goes down, add fresh water (semi-distilled) so not to alter salinity.  Here's the issue.  I do about 5g water changes. . . oh, every 2 months or so.  But I don't check the water I buy, and I keep about 5-6 5g buckets stored in the garage.  I did a water change last week, I thought the water looked a little . ."dirty/brown" but though nothing of it. The next day. . HUGE die off of all fish.  Inverts still hanging on, snails look listless.  Checked chemistry, nitrates, ammonia, PH, Phos. all appeared ok.  I have a salinity refractor, so checked salinity.  It was over 1.035!  Googled ideal and said 1.024-1.025.  Read where over 1.03 was catostrophic, and what probably killed the fish.  Started exchanging salt water with distilled fresh water about gal ever 6-10 hours, and now down to 1.025.  So going to start over.  My question is. . the die off must of been caused by the excessive salinity?  And while I try to add fresh water when level goes down as instructed, maybe the last water change bucket had excessive salinity and this 5g was excessively high and existing water may have been high too, and bam!  too much salinity = die off.  It was sudden, it makes me believe the one water change did it, and other than contaminates in the water, I wonder if it was salinity.  Going to let tank settle in for a while before getting new livestock. Recent additions (coral banded shrimp, anenome, )didn't fare well after one day, then the water change incident took the rest.  Let me know what you think.  (part 2 is "excessive bristle worms)

[Tamberav]

Maybe a sudden change, my QT tank got up to 1.038 and fish were fine but it happened slowly although I just plop fish in to be honest without acclimation.

 

I would have expected the inverts to go quicker than the fish.

 

Salinity doesn't explain the dirty/brown water though. 

 

Make sure your refractometer is calibrated. Otherwise you are testing with a unreliable instrument. 

 

Peoples tanks get nuked now and again from pre-mixed water due to contaminates such as a screw or change getting into the water the LFS sells (example).  

[toohipnoob]

Thanks Tamberav, I think you're probably right.  Something was in that water that had more than just excessive salinity.  I've had my share of die-offs, but I usually figured out why, from errors I made.  This one just upset me because it's not obvious, and it's not just the cost but loss of the fish, but "why."  I wish I had saved some of the water from that bucket to check to see if I could pin point it down.  I can't believe it was too saline, and a full tank reading of 1.035 caused all this die off.  I see that what's left, my large turbo snails and nassarious snails are crawling to the top of the tank some out of the water, so something is still going on.  Hermit crabs are listless.  Even the excessive number of bristle worms aren't hiding under the rock but just listless on the rocks.  Going to keep doing 5g water changes with new pre-mixed water, and let the tank settle in, before investing in more livestock.  The comments made about how costly and difficult maintaining a marine (vs fresh) water aquarium and reef tank are understated!.  I try to acclimate my fish livestock when getting new, but not the inverts.  There seems to be some "extremes" on the hobby of marine aquariums from those that go to every detail and cost to keep their tanks perfect, and others that count more on luck and just do what they can.  Thanks again.

[Clown79]

Brown water sounds suspect.

 

Storing premixed water for long periods can only be done with certain salts and over time, salinity levels and parameters can change.

 

Do you know what salt they use, do they always use the same salt because changing salts can change parameters which can cause issues.

 

Checking salinity before use is important when storing SW.

 

Unfortunately when purchasing premixed sw or lfs rodi, you have little control or even knowing how the water was mixed.

Anything could get into their mixture, they could have used equipment that was rusting to mix the water, etc etc.