EMERGENCY advice needed please!!

[gilraen]

When it's not one thing it's the other!! I will be receiving my shipment of fish in about 3 hrs. I just tested the salinity and because I've been adding fresh RO H2O for evaporation, it has gone down to 0.12!! What to do!!?? I have some water prepared but it has the same reading!! Stupid me didn't had enough salt!! help!!

 

[Brodie]

If you have any buddies with salt, it's time to call in some favors. Otherwise, run to the fish store ASAP and buy some salt.

 

[malkore]

0.12...what sort of reading is that? I really only measure my salinity using specific gravity...thus I maintain 1.024~1.025 on my tank. Are you just off by a decimal, and have 1.012? If so, that's indeed far too low. get your levels up ASAP, so your water has a little time to age before you start adding fish.

Water chemistry is crucial to SW fish and especially inverts.

Adding RO water for evaporative top-offs is correct. this does NOT lower your salinity, because ONLY water evaporates...salt and other minerals remain in the water. Thus either you've always had a low salinity, or your method of measuring salinity is flawed and you're not getting valid results (primary reason I use a refractometer instead of floating or swing-arm hydrometers)

 

[gilraen]

Talking about bad luck...the fish just arrived... I have no sw buddies, I do have salt with me, I think I going to put some in the sump and let the current disperse it. If anybody have any good ideas please let me know. The fish are floating as of now and I will do the 'drip method' acclimation. Wish me luck...

 

[gilraen]

My readings were 1.026 last week, like I said all I did was add RO H2O for evaporation, and today is 1.012. I used the same hydrometer. Grrrrrr

 

[Brenden]

I agree with malkore. Either your meter bad or you have always had low SG. Salt/minerals do not evaporate. Does anyone close have a meter you can borrow to compare results

 

[schoeplein]

Salt can dry up in all sorts of places around your tank lowering your salinity. Go ahead and dump whatever's calculated to get you up to normal levels into your sump all at once. Just leave your fishies in their baggies and dont actually start to acclimate them until the salt has settled/mixed in your system. The fishies sat in those bags for hours, I'm sure they can handle a couple more for safer water.

1.018 is typically minimum, 1.028 being the top end. Depending on what you're adding, wait until you're at least reading 1.021 before acclimating.

Good luck.

 

[gilraen]

Thanks schoplein, my reading now is 1.019, I also tested for other stuff just in case and everything is 0 except for nitrate which is 10ppm. The hydrometer I have is 1 month old, I doubt its bad, plus I've been adding just about a gal of new H2O every day and cleaned lots of salt creep, now that I think about it that may be the reason. Thanks to all for trying to help with this mess, it's a lesson for me to test H2O more often, especially before receiving fish!!

 

[schoeplein]

Let us know when they're all swimming around happily.

 

[Phyl]

Sometimes a bubble can get under the arm, leading to an artificially high reading. I always made sure to tap the hydro on the table to bump off any bubbles that were there before I took the reading. Even microbubbles can throw off your reading so you need to make sure to do the tap thing. I use a refractomer now.

 

[jaiden]

I say 95% chance your hydro is wrong. don't do anything drastic. Get a refractometer. $45.

 

[clowninround]

I second that. I had a good hydro that was pretty consistant with it's readings, but it was still off (hydro 1.022= refractometer 1.025). So even though it was consistant, it was way off. Good thing I keep my water at the time 1.022-1.023.