Emergency Salinity Issues

[froodyzoa]

I'm pretty new to this, but had a little tank going for a few months with some palys, zoas, and a mushroom. The way it was set up I couldn't really clean it, so three days ago or so I transferred it to a slightly bigger tank. I started noticing that none of the corals had really opened up, and the zoas had bubbles forming around them. I checked parameters and everything seemed fine, but today I double checked Salinity and it turned out I mixed it to 1.015 instead of 1.025. I did an emergency adjustment, now I'm just waiting. Is there any way to salvage this, or is it a wait and see kinda thing? 

[Garf]

How did you do the emergency adjustment? If it was to rapidly bring the salinity from 1.015 to 1.025, then I am afraid that whatever damage has been done is done.  Corals don't like sudden changes in parameters, and you had two sudden changes, one down and one up.  And with salinity changes, all other params like alk and calcium change.  Try and avoid anymore sudden changes.  It wouldn't hurt to do another couple smaller water changes, provided the params of the saltwatet mix match. 

 

Other things to be aware of are temp and lighting.  Is the new tank deeper, and are they getting enough/too much light? Is the heater sufficiently heating the new tank?

 

Good thing is that zoas, palys and shrooms can be a bit more hardy, give it time and see what happens. I'd run carbon to get rid of any toxins they may be releasing, even with regular water changes I have seen palys and shrooms release slime. Remove anything that looks to be dying before it pollutes the tank. Bubbles may be simply from adding new water to the tank, and any new sand. 

 

 

[FISHnChix]

Yep garf is right. Next time dont panic when things get out of whack. Normally things get thrown off slowly over time and the corals are fine ,  but making a quick readjustment leads to a tank crash.. if this happens again use saltwater to top off the tank evaporation daily until salinity is back to normal

[Clown79]

Any time something goes wrong, make changes slowly.

 

It's far easier on the livestock.

[Garf]

Any update? How are the corals doing?

[froodyzoa]

Sorry for the late reply, and thanks everyone for the help. Unfortunately I did do a panic adjustment - but the good news is one Zoa colony and the mushroom came through. The zoas are bleached but they have been feeding just fine so I'm hoping for the best. I've since gotten a Paly and Duncan and they're also doing fine, I think I'm falling in love with easily fed corals

[mcarroll]

In general it's bad to react too quickly to things like this, but IMO you did the right thing here.

 

1.015 will eventually be fatal to corals....probably sooner than later. 

 

Making the correction was the right move in this case.

 

Check these out:

Synergistic effects of temperature, salinity and light on the hermatypic coral Montipora verrucosa

This Google Scholar search.

 

Don't try this with dosing chemicals or anything else though.  😉