Losing salt (1 Viewer)

[Guest]

What can cause your saltiness to go down?
I seem to have the oppisite problem than
I am suppose to have with my small tank.
I am losing specific Gravity each week.

I forgot what its really called is it the ph?

Nathan

 

[Guest]

Salt creep will slowly lower it I believe.
Also a tiny pin drop leak can suprise you.

I had a tiny leak for a while that I didn't know about, went behind my sump one night and there was salt creep on everything from the tiny little drip.

Checked my salinity and it was down to 1.019 from 1.023.

I don't know how long it had been leaking.
Skimmer will lower it a tiny bit, but over time you will see a difference if you never replace the salt.

 

[cparka23]

pH is something different from specific gravity.

specific gravity is just the density of the tank water compared to pure water (which is at 1.00 grams/mL). The more salt you have, the greater the specific gravity.

pH refers to the concentration of acidic hydrogen ions per liter of water.

if you're doing water changes or any water is leaking or you have a lot of salt creep building up, you should top off with mixed saltwater. if you just add regular water, you're diluting the salt in the tank (thus lowering specific gravity). hth

 

[fishcraze]

How big is your tank, Narkon? I don't think salt creep can cause your tk salinity dropping that fast - unless you have a leak and a auto top-off w/ fresh water.
Check your skimmer too- if you have one. Did it overskim w/ very dilute skimmate? if it does, and you refill your tk w/ fresh water then you essentially dilute your tank salt water there. So adjust your skimmer, and may want to replace the dumped skimmate w/ equal volume of newly mixed saltwater.

I wouldn't recommend to (auto ) top off your tank w/ mixed saltwater!!! .. Your tank salinity could go to the roof in a short time if you have a good rate of evaporation. The salt itself does not evaporate - only your water. So, your tank salinity supposed to go up as your water evaporates- and hence you need to add FRESH (DI/RO) water to keep the salinity level stable. So my advice is to find the problem first (overskimming, leaking, bad hydrometer reading, not so well-mixed saltwater...), rather than adding saltwater to mend the problem.

 

[Guest]

Ok tank size 29 gal.
the SG is 1.023
my water I do a water change with is 1.029
after half a day of evaporation which is 1/2 of a gal
my SG is still 1.023

I have very very little saltcreep
I was topping off with RO/DI (FW) water
On a small tank one is suppose to worry about
to much salt from evaporation.

I was wanting about 1.025 SG

And I didn't think ph was the same just couldn't remember what it was for.

 

[cparka23]

fishcraze, i wasn't saying to auto top off w/ mixed saltwater. (sorry if it came across that way). i said to add saltwater if you're doing a water change or if you're losing salt. if you're losing only water (evaporation), of course just add FW.

Nathan, you know it's funny, but I've been having the same problem with my tank for the past week. I understand how you feel. I added salt directly to the sump and even in the display tank to try to get the specific gravity up. You might be surprised at how much salt you'll put in before you see a change. Just remember, make changes slowly. it sounds like you've got the right idea. 1.023 isn't bad, so the tank inhabitants should be fine.

 

[Guest]

Actually ReefALot did say do a saltwater drip when closely monitoring it, so that it is a slow rise, which means not a super strong amount of salt in the top-off.

Nathan