UHOH, salt is 40 PPT!!!

[DarrinSimon]

Got some calibration fluid for my refractometer and after calibrating my tank is at 40 PPT. Took about a half gallon of saltwater out my tank (90G) and am topping off with RO water to get it down closer to 35, going to go slow.
It's been high like this for quite a while now, had a blenny die 3 or 4 months ago and I think I know why now.
What would be the symptoms of having the salt too high?

 

[bertoni]

That's hard to say. Some parts of the ocean, like the Red Sea, run very high in salinity, as well. I'd lower the SG over a period of a week or so, to avoid any stress.

 

[DarrinSimon]

What is scary for me is my swing arm reads 24 PPT and the refractometer reads 40 PPT, thats a huge difference. I always thought it was weird that the clownfish loved to swim near where the topoff water drips, now it makes sense, give me fresh water!

 

[jeff@zina.com]

Take a sample to the LFS for a comparison test.

Jeff

 

[bertoni]

I agree. I should have suggested getting a second opinion. How was the refractometer calibrated? Distilled or RO/DI water are unreliable for this purpose.

 

[DarrinSimon]

I used some calibration fluid that I just bought, supposed to measure at 1.026 (35 PPT). Originally when I got the refractometer it said to use RO water and zero it out so thats what I did. I read here that this method may not be the most accurate, so thats why I bought the calibration fluid.
And so last night I I started double checking things again and another UHOH moment, I read the dang thing wrong when I was calibrating it!!! :uhoh2:
So now I have it calibrated and my salinity was actually much closer than I thought to 35 PPT.
Oh well chalk it up to human error, lesson learned. Whats most important here now is that I did not over react and try to correct the whole problem really fast. Now my salinity is just a tad lower than where I would like it to be, 1.024. So I did lower the salinity but only slightly, and that was over a 2 day period so no huge difference. Fish seem really happy and active and after my WC today they should be even happier. Thanks for the replies guys, your help is always appreciated.

 

[bertoni]

You're welcome! Sounds like everything's okay.