Water Top Off

joyful23

joyful23

Member
Ok....finally got my salinity to 1.025. Now the big/stupid question. When I top my tank off I don't add any instant ocean right? And I guess I should put a heater in the top off water and raise the temp to my tank temp right? I topped off two days ago and didn't do this and my temp dropped to 74 degrees! :scared: Just new to all this and want to make sure I'm doing this all right. Just LS and LR at the moment. One other thing. I'm adding buffer to raise Ph. Once my ph is where it should be do I stop adding to the top off water or add everytime I top off? Thanks.
 
usinkit

usinkit

Member
If your top off water is dropping the tank water then yes I would put a heater in it. What is your PH.
 
nm reef

nm reef

Active Member
Its not a stupid question at all.....replace evaporation with only water...no salt....the salt stays behind as water evaporates...
...and yes.....the top-off water should be close to the same temp as your tanks water...especially if you are adding a lot at one time.
As for the PH.....unless you are adding a lot of top-off at one time it shouldn't have much effect on your systems PH......
 
usinkit

usinkit

Member
8.3 is good. Whats bad is having PH swings. Ive had a tank that always had a ph of 7.8 but it stayed their. Its more important that the ph is stable then the actual number IMO.
 
joyful23

joyful23

Member
I just checked my levels and here they are...am I missing something here?
Ph - 8.0 (Two days ago it was 8.3)
Ammonia - 0
Trites - 0
Trates - 10
Tank has been set up a week. Ammonia was 0.25. Trites have always been 0. Trates are rising. Not sure I understand this. LR was not fully cured when I put it in so I figured that ammonia and trites would spike?
 
joyful23

joyful23

Member
Oh and my sg is now 1.029???? Piece of crap hydrometer. I had bought a refractometer, but bought the wrong one (beer). So I just ordered another one last night.
 
usinkit

usinkit

Member
Do you have good surface agitation? I would point a powerhead at the water surface. This will increase your oxygen and should help you keep your ph up and stable. i would not add anymore buffer. You should also get a alkalinity test kit and test since youve been adding buffer.
 
joyful23

joyful23

Member
I have four powerhead towards the top of my tank, but will aim one more to the top. I will pick up alkalinity test today. Thanks.
 
danedodger

danedodger

Member
In my experience the safest way to go all round is to test before you add anything, even just top off water. If the salinity is right where you want it and you add fresh water it's going to drop your salinity to some degree. So instead you'd want to add water that you've added salt to. If the salinity in your tank is a little high (as is often the case with just evaporation) then you can carefully add fresh water to top off bringing salinity down to the right level. You get the picture

And yes, make sure you heat your water to the same temp as your tank, especially if you're adding a lot of water!! I had an emerald crab for ages until my sweetie poured a load of room temp water into one end of the tank right on top of him and killed him!
When you're starting out and still learning the best thing to do is better safe than sorry in ALL things! You'll get the hang of it all and get a better idea of where all your levels are at and be able to cut back on some of the extra steps (like testing salinity before topping off and such) but until you get that "feel" for it all slow and steady!
 
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