Zoa's and salinity

[hounddog01]

I had a salinity change overnight when my skimmer overflowed. I must have lost about 8 gallons of water and dropped my salinity about .003 - .004. It went from 1.025 - 1.021. I brought it back up over 2 days by adding 1 cup of salt in the filter sock 2 times a day for 2 days. Since the drop the zoas have closed up and not recovered yet. It has been a week since the issue.

Has anyone else had this issue and what was your outcome. I have some really nice zoas and do not want to loose them. Any help would be appriciated.

 

[flyyyguy]

first off...that is not how you want to go about raising the salinity. by adding the salt like that you instantly made most all calcium fall out of solution and skewed the alk to very low(in concern to the salt you added and all water that flowed through that filter sock while the alk was off the charts). Dependign on what your levels were to begin with, its hard to say what the end result would be without testing. Im willing to bet you have at least a little white stuff stuck to the sides of your sump and inside the filter sock. this is calcium that will never go back into solution

how do you mix up your asw out of curiousity?? Make sure you dump it slowly into water that is either spinning by hand, or spinning with a pump. this mixes it slowly and wont let it mix up in such a way that the alk is off the charts and create precipitation of calicum and who knwos what other elements we cant measure for

In the future, what you did isnt all that big of a deal, the initial drop that is. Corals can take a drop in salinity, its the quick rises that are a poblem as it can cause osmotic shock. the best way to raise salinity(assuming it isnt dangerously low....like below .020 is to simply use new freshly mixed asw for your top offs until the salinity is in line. It would have taken days or more to bring it up this way depending on how much watr you evaporate, but it would be a safe way to raise it and you wouldnt have lost the good stuff in the salt that you want

bringing your salinity up 4 points in two days is a little too fast, but not so fast that it should cause that big of problems that you are seeing with your polyps. check your calcium and alk...most importantly alk and make sure it is in line. Im guessing it and your calcium is low, calcium, isnt so important prpbabl;y depending, but the alk could be depending on how low it is.

some water changes may be in order to get the tanks water back in line. but repost back what your paramters are. alk calcium and mag(if you have it). nothing else really matters for this conversation

 

[hounddog01]

first off...that is not how you want to go about raising the salinity. by adding the salt like that you instantly made most all calcium fall out of solution and skewed the alk to very low(in concern to the salt you added and all water that flowed through that filter sock while the alk was off the charts). Dependign on what your levels were to begin with, its hard to say what the end result would be without testing. Im willing to bet you have at least a little white stuff stuck to the sides of your sump and inside the filter sock. this is calcium that will never go back into solution

how do you mix up your asw out of curiousity?? Make sure you dump it slowly into water that is either spinning by hand, or spinning with a pump. this mixes it slowly and wont let it mix up in such a way that the alk is off the charts and create precipitation of calicum and who knwos what other elements we cant measure for

In the future, what you did isnt all that big of a deal, the initial drop that is. Corals can take a drop in salinity, its the quick rises that are a poblem as it can cause osmotic shock. the best way to raise salinity(assuming it isnt dangerously low....like below .020 is to simply use new freshly mixed asw for your top offs until the salinity is in line. It would have taken days or more to bring it up this way depending on how much watr you evaporate, but it would be a safe way to raise it and you wouldnt have lost the good stuff in the salt that you want

bringing your salinity up 4 points in two days is a little too fast, but not so fast that it should cause that big of problems that you are seeing with your polyps. check your calcium and alk...most importantly alk and make sure it is in line. Im guessing it and your calcium is low, calcium, isnt so important prpbabl;y depending, but the alk could be depending on how low it is.

some water changes may be in order to get the tanks water back in line. but repost back what your paramters are. alk calcium and mag(if you have it). nothing else really matters for this conversation

I should have posted the parms with my initial post.

Alk 7.8
Cal 400
Mag 1275

I have a 55 gallon drum in my basement that I usualy mix saltwater in for water changes. I pump it up from the basement to do the change after I siphon water out of the tank. I did do a 25% water change after I raised the salinity. You are correct I should have just shut off the ato and used salt water to bring it back up, but when I seen the Zoa'a really looking bad I thought that was the problem and wanted to bring it up ASAP. I would have done it differently in hindsite.

I am just really upset because before this they looked so good and were growing really well. I had 2 rare ones that really look bad. I hope they come back.

 

[flyyyguy]

well if those numbers are accurate, then it appears you did no real harm with the little salt incident.

how confident are you in your measurement of salinity??

IF, you are not properly calibrating your refractometer, and you were at the max end of .04 off like you can be if you calibrate it with distilled water like the directions say(the directions are wrong for our application), then you could have in fact dropped the salinity to .017 which would have been a bigger deal

other than that, I dont see anything in your post that under regular circumstances whould have caused quite the problems you are seeing

 

[hounddog01]

well if those numbers are accurate, then it appears you did no real harm with the little salt incident.

how confident are you in your measurement of salinity??

IF, you are not properly calibrating your refractometer, and you were at the max end of .04 off like you can be if you calibrate it with distilled water like the directions say(the directions are wrong for our application), then you could have in fact dropped the salinity to .017 which would have been a bigger deal

other than that, I dont see anything in your post that under regular circumstances whould have caused quite the problems you are seeing

Refract meter is accurate. All SPS and LPS are just fine. No Ill effects. Maybe it is something else, but I have not changed anything else. Just strange.

 

[Stripe01]

My friends salinity went up to 1.33 and within two weeks all of his zoas and palys melted away. They don't seem to be able to handle big salinity changes.

 

[Reef Bass]

+1 for not adding salt directly to the water system. Mix it in RO/DI water first.

 

[hounddog01]

My friends salinity went up to 1.33 and within two weeks all of his zoas and palys melted away. They don't seem to be able to handle big salinity changes.

Looks like the same butt whooping mine are taking. This really upsets me!! AAAAGGGGGGGG!