help my salt is 1.030!

Mine was at 1.031 when Ifound out mine was bad. I slowelly broght it down did not lose a fish or anything for that matter. its going to bo ok. Take water out slowelly and add fresh water slowelly. It will take a few days but you will be a-ok.

 

where are you getting this freshwater from?

 

We had the EXACT same situation. Lousy plastic meter read much lower than the actual salinity. Bought the refractometer and got the actual reading of 1.030. We lowered it over the next few weeks by changing it out with RO/DI water and had no problems. Our fish and coral adjusted to the change easily and we didn't lose anything - except the plastic meter!

I don't think it is as scary of a situation as it sounds - I was freaked out at first over our levels, but didn't need to be.

Good luck!

 

Mine stays somewhere between 1.025 and 1.028. Never have any problems, these creatures are tougher than we give them credit for. When I do water changes I either dump fresh saltwater into the tank over my rocks to stir up any detritus or dump into the sump.

 

I use ro water
Thanks K

 

What do you mean? i use ro water from the store & add my own salt. My tank was first set up with purified tap water but then i switched to shop ro and to day i got my own new ro machine. It was on offer £100 reduced to £79 in the sales
Thanks K

 

Hi Kiarah, not that the others aren't but shack is giving you great advice. When I went through the very same thing (seems we all have) I siphoned out 2-3 gallons and added the fresh, waited a day and repeated until I got to .025.

 

I know this topic is probably dealt with now but i wanted to add a similar experience i had.

My tank is a small 24g nano, so im always having to do top up.
I buy my RO from a LFS about 10 mins down my road (very usefull)

I had purchased some RO water, this was around perhaps July 2008.

About a week later i was mixing up some WC water and couldn't find my notes on correct quantities of salt etc, so i had to test the WC with my refractometer.

Long story short it was much much saltier than i had expecting.
I dipped my finger into the RO water and tasted it.

For reasons only known to themselves this LFS had started selling 1.017 salinity water (why i have no idea) and not told anyone.

So i tested my tank and i almost had a heart attack, it read 1.036

The only coral i keep is a Tubastrea which is so robust i could probably keep it in pure bleach, which is also a downside because i assumed nothing was wrong.
Anyway, I panicked but as others have said reduce the level slowly, i reduced it to about 1.025 over the next 2 weeks and things are pretty good now.
Had the Tubastrea almost a year now! Eats more than anything i've ever seen lol

 

when going down in salt u dont have to go slow... its going up that is the problem

 

I highly disagree! There should be no sudden or dramatic changes, even with Nitrate. There are far too many creatures in our tank and no blanket rule to cover all of them. No matter what the adjustment, patience and going slow is the only blanket statement that can be made concerning our tanks.