Lowering salinity

Greetings 3Reefer's. I checked my salinity today for the first time in a while (bad me I know) and it was a little high. 1.026. I want to bring it down. The total volume in my tank is 12 gallons and I can't just add more RO/DI because it would put too much in my system, so I need to remove some saltwater and add RO/DI. The question is, how much do I remove and replace? Any math wizzes out there or non math wizzes who know the answer?

 

1.026 is really not that high If you have coral but if you are concerned you can just remove about 32oz and adding 32oz of RO-DI and re-check after about 2 hrs and repeat untill you hit your number. That's what I'll do if it was me.

 

That's where I keep mine. Bit you can slowly replace salt with RO/DI as suggested. I did this with success last month.

 

1.026 is perfect IMO. +/-.002

 

What number are you targeting?

 

I like to shoot for the middle of everything (learned the hard way) and not the upper and lower extremes (for calc, alk, mag, salinity etc.). Leaves room for the error you referenced ("+/- 0.002").

 

I was going for 1.025, but I guess I'm worring a bit about nothing. I'm using a refractometer that I've calibrated using calibrated solution so I'm confident in my reading. I guess I'm trying to be too exact.

 

Nothing wrong with that. Keep it where you are comfortable. Either is a good number, imo.

 

1.025 is what most reefers aim to keep their tanks at from what I have seen (and is what I do as well). Don't do any drastic changes to try to get it down. Next water change you can just mix up a batch around 1.022 and go from there.

 

1.025 might be better in a small tank. It leaves a lil room for evaporation fluctuations. Unless you have an ATO then you don't worry about evap.