Salt level question

Glad we're on the same page there

I don't find that there is any conflict w/experience and science in this discussion. I realize you don't have a scientific explanation (I don't either) for why my experience played out. But that doesn't mean my experience conflicts w/scientific explanation. Only that it conflicts with your understanding... (I don't mean that in a mean way).

I'll monitor this thread in case anyone can scientifically explain it or scientifically prove I misinterpreted my observation, but I don't think I have any more to add. At this point.

 

Fair enough, my interpretation is that the most likely any effect of high or low salinity, will be due to osmotic stress, but without further hypothesis, I have no reason to believe it would be worse as a result of high vs low salinity situations. This is certainly based on interpretation of limited data though. O2 is an interesting counter argument, but you still need to determine if, hypoxia is worse than hyperoxia for the animals kept though, I don't know if there is any research on this. I looked quickly, and couldn't find anything. Assuming there isn't anything definitive, it is also up to interpretation....

As for high, or low salinity, I've looked through the literature more thoroughly and can't find anything that definitively shows which would be worse. So far, I've only found 3 references, two of which were accessible. Of the two references that even looked at both high and low together. One Pages et al 1999 found stylophora pistillata to be sensitive to high and low, but did actually find it to be slightly less sensitive to low salinity. The other Muthiga et all, 1987 did not show any significant difference between high and low for the coral Siderastrea Siderea.

Basically, though no one seems to be too interested in this topic.... and therefore there really no conclusive statement can be made on the subject based on scientific data.

Not to get distracted, by the high or low debate though, I'd like to go back to my original point, that natural salinty levels should be maintained. There have been a large number of studies looking at either high or low salinity separately. While from a scientific perspective, it may not be conclusive whether or not corals are more sensitive to high or low salinity, it is conclusive that corals are generally are very sensitive to both high and low salinity. So, I think the recommendation to keep corals at their natural salinity levels, is consistent with scientific findings. (sorry, I am assuming this isn't a FOWLR since this is a reef site, but you never know).

If you want to know if it's safer to err on the side of high or low I guess it's fair to say it will have to be left up to your experiences and intuition.