Salinity

[Cn246368]

Are salinity swings between 33.5 and 34.5 normal. They swing up and down between 5-7 hours down and another 5-7hours up. Is it something I should be worried about

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

If it rises & falls the same every day I would say not to worry.

 

[Cn246368]

Yea its like every 7 hours I goes one way and then 7 for the other way I just thought it was weird since I can't see what is doing that

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Mother Nature does not reveal all her secrets.

 

[shred5]

It should not swing. Do you not have a Auto top off and that is causing the swing?
Salinity mostly stays consistent in a reef aquarium. The only time I have seen swings like that is for those who manually top off or really small aquariums.

 

[Cn246368]

Yea i have the atk on it

 

[JohnL]

How are you measuring?

 

[Cn246368]

With apex

 

[kharmaguru]

With apex

I would say it's an artifact of the probe and not real unless the probe is downstream from your ATO influx, in which case it is real in that vicinity. I can't remember the last time my refractometer has not said exactly 1.025 when checking my tank water.

 

[JohnL]

I would say it's an artifact of the probe

That's what I was thinking.

 

[Cn246368]

Well atk is in return section of sump and probe is the section before it in my refugium. I'll try moving it little more back and maybe adjusting atk so it doesn't have chance to go backwards maybe

 

[shred5]

With apex

Salinity probes are known not to be the best for measuring salinity and environmental changes do affect them.
I am not going into the whole salinity probe issues because some of it is way over my head anyway. They can be somewhat accurate but not just sitting in a sump or somewhere. So many things can affect them.