salinity
 

For some reason i am having trouble getting my salinity up. Its a new tank (33g) it has been runing for about 2 months. i just put 3 green chromis in the tank about a week ago. i did a 25% water change on monday. Filled it back up with water at the right salinity. But for some reason the salinity is low ( it's at 26ppt) 1 chromis has died today. I keep adding disolved salt but it goes up just a bit. I don't want to add to much.
What am i doing wrong? Does temp have a big part in this?
Sorry for the long post, but i just do not know what i am doing wrong.

What are you using to test the water with? Sometime the plastic types aren't very reliable. If it is the plastic type, test it with ro water, it should read 1.0. If not give it a good cleaning and test it again. I use vinager and hot water to clean mine. just give it a good rinse before using it again.

I would take a water sample to a LFS and have them test it to see where you are at. A refractor has been a good investment for me and they are not that much.

Second on the refractometer. I thought I was at 1.024 and was really at 1.028.

Im kinda new at marine tanks but maybe i should know this. What is a refractometer?

OK cool i see what it is. I just have a cheap plastic one. I will pick up the good kind soon.
Thanks everyone!!

How are you mixing your water? Most salt mixes come with directions - 1/2 cup of salt to a gallon of any fresh water will yield a salinity of around 31 ppt... right smack dab in the centre of the acceptable parameters. Don't ever put concentrated salt directly into the aquarium... only fully dissolved prepared water... the dissolving action can burn a fish's gills, and inverts won't tolerate it at all. I know this may be a simple basic thing, but I cannot believe how many people think it's OK to dissolve a cup of salt in a quart of water and dump it in, or worse shovel salt directly out of a bucket into an inhabited tank!

When I want to bump my salinity I typically just use salt water for a few days as my evaporation make up water instead of fresh... this makes it happen steadily and slowly so as to not stress anyone. If you wish to accelerate it a bit maybe just use hypersaline water at >40ppt as long as it's dripped... again, dissolving is all about ion exchange with positive and negative charges flying around everywhere and your creatures being bombarded and burned... once everything is dissolved it then exists as the delicate ionically balanced environment in which they live...

now you tell me, I do it all the time. ad a cup to the sump and it mixes in over an hour.

Steve

The way i have been doing it is by adding 1 cup of salt to 4 cups of warm water , let it desolve then adding it slowlly to the tank. And i figure i will keep doing this till the salinity is at 30ppt.
But i am also wondering if the temp has a role in the salinity level?