Tank to salty - my attempt at recovery

I posted a thread earlier about how to use the hydrometer. After trying and trying, I decided to trust my equipment (hopefully this was as good move), and I came to the conclusion that my tank was too salty.

Not only was my hydrometer reading high salt, but my damsel was not looking very colorful, and he was starting to show red on his belly and near his gills (again as a newbie, I really have no idea what this means... but it did not look good). Also, I could not find my hermit, and I think he might have gone to hermit heaven.

So, I decided to trust my equipment, and came to the conclusion that my tank was, in fact, too salty (other parameters good). Of course I am baffled by this, because I took the water from the ocean five days ago.

I went into a slight panic, and filled up some tap water (de-chorlinzed it), and slowly started adding the tap water (of course still way to fast, and I did not have time to let the tap water sit over night... perhaps I should have, but I kind of considered this a tank emergency).

Currently, the water is at a good salt level... the damsel is still swimming , but I hope I did not ruin my first attempt at saltwater.

Any ideas.... !! Anything I should do tomorrow? I was thinking I should probably take a water sample to the LFS. And I am going to get more ocean water this weekend (ehh... I hope that will work).

Cheers!
-Adam

 

Adam I dont wanna dig to deep into this but first off,
using tap water really is a NO NO and declorinator for a reef .
(invest into an RO/DI unit or buy it from LFS and keep enough on hand for and emergency )

Some might disagree here but honestly that "hydrometer" is not as reliable as a "refraction meter"
So many companys make them and yes their cheap, ever wonder why ?
and calibration and air bubbles that get traped on the neddle etc.
( Just to unreliable in my book for long term )

And you should learn to test water prameters your self with quality test kits.
You would know now' and not tomorrow at the LFS.

 

I had the same thing happen to me when I first started, and after I lost all my shrimp and caused undo suffering on not only my fish but on myself, I was told this......"dont do anything drastic without being absolutely sure"

I took a reading with my hydrometer and over reacted and dumped in RO water at like 2am (cause I can not sleep...so why not mess with your tank when you are half asleep?)

I woke up next morning to a couple dead shrimp, a dead fish, and my corals looking like WWII occured. (Did not help that I had a cuc in there that must have died and actually caused WWII!) Double whammy...did not know what I was doing and had a cuc in there:-X. VERY BAD COMBO!!!!

Anyway, morale of the story....I was told that it affects your livestock worse by causing a drastic anything...a quick drop in SG, a quick drop in pH, etc.

I do not use anything but a refractometer, IMO best investment I ever made... I keep RO on hand (I now have my own RO/DI), I have test kits for emergency, but I do still perfer to have LFS test as I have problems with colors sometimes, and I dont do anything to my tank without knowing for sure.

But you live and learn. Things happen, and you learn from it. That is part of this hobby. Like I was told..."I bet you dont do this again!" which was true, I never did THAT particular thing again;D

 

He doesn't say its a reef tank.
But i most certainly agree about those silly needle swing hydrometers! So fiddley and they always give a different reading.

 

This is a new tank? Did it cycle or are you using the damsel to cycle the tank? How far out are you going to collect the water? I wouldn't use any water that is near the shore. That is where most of the pollutants end up. It would be best to collect water from a few miles out. Definitely test your water with a refractometer & use the RO/DI water to top-off for evaporation. If you don't have that use distilled.