HELP! bamboo shark and massive drop in salinity

[Itsadeepbluesea]

Agreed on the RO water. You can get away with tap water depending on the tap water you have, but RO water is better.

 

[lovesharksmorethanmyself]

Agreed. All the above is good advise. Get a good quality refractometer. Dont make wild changes. 1.027 wont kill it if it got there slowly neither will 1.018 if the same. And no a 1/2 gallon of water will not cause that big a swing in 75g. I have also never seen electronic refractometers.

You should always top off salt water with ro. Actually rodi is better. Salt doesnt evaporate so you use fresh so you keep a constant salinity.

Agreed. All the above is good advise. Get a good quality refractometer. Dont make wild changes. 1.027 wont kill it if it got there slowly neither will 1.018 if the same. And no a 1/2 gallon of water will not cause that big a swing in 75g. I have also never seen electronic refractometers.

You should always top off salt water with ro. Actually rodi is better. Salt doesnt evaporate so you use fresh so you keep a constant salinity.

yes I picked up a good quality refractometer that day, one of the ones you manually calibrate. The salinity is now stablized at 1.024, however now he has an inflammation on his stomach from where he scratched it up on a rock. This has been a hell of a week for me and my poor baby, just want it to be over. Do you have any advice for treating external stomach inflammations? Just made a post about it if you could help me out.
And yes, should’ve corrected myself but I do top off with rodi water. Glad to now know that it was the equipment that was off and not such a small amount of water causing such large fluctuations

 

[lovesharksmorethanmyself]

Agreed on the 1/2 gallon of water. If you see a while changes with something like that, that is a clue it is equipment related.

Glad I now know this for the future, bought a good quality refractometer so hopefully I never run into that problem again!

 

[Aquadog]

Ive kept salt water for years. I had a rodi 200 gpd setup and had a total of over 1800g of saltwater in my house. Ive had all manner of corals and fish including sharks and rays. With the intense lighting corals need if you use anything but rodi you are asking for a huge algae farm. Breaking the water down to its bare "essential" then adding salt puts only the "good" stuff back in to it. Less to worry about, just whats in the food you feed for extra levels of po4 and no3. For testing specific gravity a lab grade refractometer is the best option. I had a swing arm style for quick checks of the mixing stage for my w/c water and quick system checks. They can be inaccurate if not rinsed properly or if air bubbles are present on the arm. I calibrated my refractometer with new calibration fluid on the 15th of every month.
The three main things needed for a successful salt tank is a good sg measuring device, good source water, and a top quality skimmer. The rest can be mediocre including care if you have top quality of those things. Just my opinion but you have no idea the crazy things ive seen.

twentyleagues is absolutely right. I had a clean tank free of phosphates and algae. My large tank had a leak that needed to be repaired, and during the repair I ended up losing more water that predicted. I had to use about 80 gallons of just carbon filtered tap water from my sink, which I knew was a bad idea, but it was an emergency. After 1 month of that water and a single 150g water change of 600g, I had so much hair algae and still had high phosphates. I would only suggest using RODI for top off and salt mixing. Out of curiosity I tested the water from the water machines at the local supermarket, and it's only RO water, not RODI and it too contained phosphates.

It's worth getting a decent 150g per day RODI system from Bulk Reef Supply or Marine Depot. Probably one of the best buys I made and made life a lot easier for me.