Saltinity high help!

[drillsar]

my tank reads 1.030 and my make up water is 1.025 can I do a wter change without shocking my snails and blenny? or should i make main tank 1.025 first?

[theop]

Bring your specific gravity down slowly, about 0.001 per day until it is at the desired level. You don't necessarilly need to do a water change.

You can remove some salt water and replace it with fresh water (RO or distilled). How much to remove depends on the size of your tank. I'd start with small volumes first to see how much it affects your SG.

[theop]

Another thing: Make sure you are topping off evaporative loss with pure water, and not salt water.

[boxfishpooalot]

what instrument do you use to test sg? Lets find out that first because some of those instruments are usually totally off. Swing arm hydrometers in my experience are .005 off! usually higher. So your sg may be already 1.025(natural sw)

What instrument to test sg?

[drillsar]

refractometer.. How long before you have to recalibrate it? Its new like a month old./

[boxfishpooalot]

Thats good then. I would lower the sg very slowly, otherwise you will see an ich outbreak. Feeding them very well durring this process would help them fight it off. Imo.

the process of fish getting sick is complicated, but relating to sg follows:

SALINITY FACTS:
-Osmoregulation-Maintenance of an optimal, constant osmotic pressure in the body of a living organism. Fast salinity changes can cause stress on the organsim. Thus having to put out more energy to maintain/correct its osmotic pressure differences.Osmotic imbalance can be fatal.
-A fish that is using a lot of energy to osmoregulate will have less energy available to it for the production of a slime coat
-When drinking sea water, marine fish consume from 0.2% to 0.5% of their body weight per hour. 70% to 80% of the water swallowed is absorbed .
-Every fish has a specific kidney desighned to live in a certain salt enviroment.
-Most marine animals spend upto 80% of their normal energy budget in the process of maintaining balanced osmoregulation.
-The first systems to fail usually(from osmoregulation imbalance,ie-rapid SG drop) will be the kidney or renal system, but the nervous and muscular systems (which also depend upon the appropriate ionic balances) may also go rapidly


NATURAL SEAWATER FACTS:
-Seawater is 3.5% dissolved ions and 96.5% water.
-seawater's major elements are water, chloride,sodium,sulphate,magnesium and calcium.
-seawater is said to contain every element known to man

with only 3.5% dissolved salts in your tank you can immagine how sensitive they are to a sg change. Imo your best bet is to lower it slowly to nsw(1.025-026) but do this over 1 month to avoid problems like ich and deaths from snails and inverts. :D

[boxfishpooalot]

Calibrate your refractometer every month or two. Or whenever you suspect it to be inacurate. :)

[Randall_James]

Originally posted by boxfishpooalot
Thats good then. I would lower the sg very slowly, otherwise you will see an ich outbreak. Feeding them very well durring this process would help them fight it off. Imo.

Not sure I go along with that, ich outbreaks will only occure if you have it in your tank to start with (poor husbandry techniques IE no quarantine tank) but ICH is not the concern here.

Salinity changes should be gradual and here is a calculator to help you out. You can just start doing some daily water changes until you get to your target. (remove tank water, replace with unsalted water)

http://saltyzoo.com/SaltyCalcs.html

You can safely change 2 gallons a day (pure fresh RO/DI) a day per 100 gallons of tank capacity until you get to your target salinity.

Unless you buy calibration fluid, you can test your refractometer at any time with your RO/DI water, should be at 1.000

[boxfishpooalot]

Your agreeing with me, your just saying if ich is not there it wont happen :)

Stress by the physical enviroment effects the health and disease sucesptibility of your fish. If a rapid change in sg occurs and your fish is stressed the fish may or may not get sick. Most often they do in my experience.