Water Evaporation

neosoulman

neosoulman

Member
When replacing evaporated water - how do i know whether i should add R/O water or saltwater to top off?
I undersand that if i keep adding salt water, since salt does not evaporate, I would be increasing the salinity. However if I keep adding fresh water, I am decreasing the salinity right? Whats the balance?
 
carshark

carshark

Active Member
Originally Posted by neosoulman
When replacing evaporated water - how do i know whether i should add R/O water or saltwater to top off?
I undersand that if i keep adding salt water, since salt does not evaporate, I would be increasing the salinity. However if I keep adding fresh water, I am decreasing the salinity right? Whats the balance?

well how much water is water is evaporating? either way adding RO water to top off your tank is vital, why would you add salt to a tank that has evaporated water period? you have to find a medium and by checking your levels before you add top off water will tell you how much water and how frequently you should be adding it...
 
Y

yetti

Guest
The only time I ever added Saltwater was when I was trying to raise the salinity slowly. But you have to be very careful and should always check your salinity daily.
 
jokerj

jokerj

Member
try this when you get levels where they should be and salinity is good mark the tank with a sharpe marker on the back of the tank. When water evaporates the salt does not so all you should do is top off with RO water. Check daily and add RO water till you are at the mark you put on tank. This should take care of problem. The only time you should add saltwater to the tank is on water changes and if trying to raise the salinity. Hope this will help!
 
neosoulman

neosoulman

Member
sounds like as long as i am doing water changes once per month i should not have to worry about adding saltwater to top off evaporation, i stick with the R/O water.
do i need to check salinity readings daily if i follow this routine? seems like a bit much.
 
Y

yetti

Guest
You are correct.
I check mine daily, but that's because I have corals and invertabrates in there. I've found it's always a good practice.
 
S

sinner's girl

Guest
yep, you should always check daily. It might not always evaborate at the same rate. If the weather is cooler or warmer, if you have a fan on, ect. So you should still check daily. Just add fresh ro water as needed. I add about a gallon every 2-3 days. But I can go longer if I must (I left for 8 days with no problems, just lowered the sg a little bit before we left and we I got back the sg was perfect.)
Also, salt does leave the tank, salt creep or whatever, I have tons of it on the 55gl in the living that I had to clean up. Only some on the 75gl right now.
 
mudplayerx

mudplayerx

Active Member
It takes a very long time for salt creep to actually lower salinity. I have never added saltwater as topoff to replace evaporation. The only time I add saltwater to the tank is when doing water changes. I used to reintroduce the creep into my hob filters, but stopped this practice and my salinity has still been unaffected.
ps- never reintroduce creep into the main tank. Whatever the creep lands on will recieve a horrible chemical burn.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top