Emergency: Water change problems

[Jarred Darque]

OK, I was doin my water change, and apparantly, I misread my hydrometr and thermometer or something, but hte water I added to the tank was too low on salt and temp.

The tank temp dropped from an even 80 to about 76, and the SG from about 1.021 to about 1.0185 (understand that reading it isnt perfect)

The only immediate problems that have arisen so far is my ricordia, its arms seam to have ballooned, filling up with i guess water, making it look somewhat rigid. No discoloration or anything, I am going to let the heaters take care of raisin the temp, and am slowly adding about a teaspoon of salt every 5-10 minutes.

I am hoping that y'all will tell me that I am not going to lose anything, that everythign wil lreturn to normal over time. In about a week or two, when I get the larger tank I am workin on up, I will be switching to store bought SW from the LFS, which should at least keep me from mixin in the wrong SG. (which I am guessing what is causin the ricordia to look like this)

The two new clowns are looking fine, and acting fine, as are al the inverts.

[Ziggy953]

I would not suggest adding salt directly to the tank....that is not a good idea!!!!!!!!!

[Jarred Darque]

I am not.. I am removing water into a bowl, mixing in the salt until it has desolved then adding the water

[Ziggy953]

When you mix your SW you should allow it to sit for at least 24hours so that it can heat and mix to what you have in your tank. I usually let mine new SW mix in a 32g trashcan for a couple of days allowing the SG to get exact and the temp to get to 78-80.

[Ziggy953]

Do you have a lot of coral in the tank?

[Jarred Darque]

only coral is the ricordia. and some random things that hitchiked on live rock. One was a mushroom..it is..missing..I dont know as of when, but I just noticed it. There is also a couple orange ball anemones that hithchiked in

[Ziggy953]

i wouldn't worry too much about the SG drop then. How big is this tank? Mix up some SW and allow it to sit over night. I would mix it to 1.023-1.024 this will help compensate for the drop of SG. When you add it back to the tank tomorrow do it slowly allowing it to mix with the tank water slowly. I have had a similar thing happen to me. My auto top-off decided to go nuts and run about 10 gallons of water into my sump (FW) so my SG went down from 1.023 to 1.019 or so. I freaked out at first but calmed down and got to mixing some SW up. I shut off the auto top-off and allowed for more evaporation and slowly the SG came back up and didn't bother anything and I have lots of coral SPS LPS and others.

[Jarred Darque]

ok. I will stop adding salt then for the day. it is up to about 1.019 now (10 gallon tank)
I will finish my water changes on my FW tanks then and fil lteh bucket back up with saltwater and an extra heater I have lyin around....really glad I went out and bought 5 50 watt heaters :P they come in use at times


temp is comihn up as well, is at 77 now

[Ziggy953]

The temp isn't so bad either...though a sudden drop isn't good. My little 5g nano goes from 80 during the day to about 77 at night and i have tons of coral in it. I always recomend that you mix your SW up 24hours before the water change and just to be sure double check your SG and temp. I think you should be ok but you should definately check it first thing in the morning. We have all had our oopses!!! Luckily our critters are more resilient then we give them credit for sometimes!!

[Jarred Darque]

Yeah, thanks for the supporting words. I really need to get a refractometer :/ havinga small tank and a inaccurate meter isnt the greatest of combos :P

[Ziggy953]

I agree. I don't get but just so worried about my nano because right across from it is my 72g bow with a total of about 120g. I have a pretty good supply of water if ever the need came up, and the I usally pull a gallon from the 72 to mix with the nano when I do water changes. Helps to feed the little tank as I have no filtration on it at all other then the LR and sand....