The Puffer Forum

Jay.B. wrote:if you have scales that measure in small enough increments, I have found that 1.25 grams of salt per litre (4.6 grams per gallon) equates to approx 0.001 on the sg scale

if you are at pure fresh water 1.000 and wanted to take your sg up to 1.002, then you will need to add approx 506 grams of salt to your aquarium, I prefer to raise at 0.001 per week just to be on the safe side, I don't want to risk killing my nitrifying bacteria, a 0.002 raise should be okay, but if calculations are slightly out then problems can occur.

How do I convert that into cups or tablespoons? I do not have a way to weigh the salt. I would prefer to stay on the safe side and raise .001 a week. Anything between .001-.002 would be great.

my cup or tea spoon could be bigger or smaller than yours, not a great way to measure things

A cup measurement should be a cup measurement whether you are in the UK or USA. I have no scales here to measure by weight. Thanks for your input Jay.B.

We have a very wide range of sizes of cup here from little kids cups to jumbo tea cups etc. virtually every drinking vessel over here gets called a cup at some point, unless it's made of glass then it's called a glass...

this is probably why I don't get the "how many cups of salt" because it depends on the size of cup

You don't have a one cup measurements in the UK? I did not mean measure salt by any drinking cup in the house. I mean a one cup measurement.

nope, we don't have a "1 cup" measurement, everything over here is either weighed out in Kg, g, lbs or oz etc. etc., or measured by volume in litres or mililitres etc. etc.

I feel stupid now for not knowing of the "cup" measurement haha sorry

I understand now. In the US we can measure in a cup, ounce, ml, or 1/4 cup increments.

right then... bear with me a short while, I'll go and dry the kit off from the water change, and sort it, there's "cup (US)" on the online converter I use, I can measure out the equivalent volume, weigh it then convert it back for you

My daughter looked up an online converter. With your figures Jay she figured 2 cups of salt.

I'm leary using 2 cups because I added 2 1/2 cups and it was way to much. Are you getting the same thing?

Okay then... rough guide... very rough, this was done very quickly, so will work to just upping the SG at 0.001 per week to be on the safe side...

1 cup = approx 390g and I stress approximately... (I use tropic marin pro reef salt)

so to increase your SG in a 55 gallon(US) tank you would need approx 2/3 of a cup to raise 55 gallons of water from 1.000 to 1.001

bearing in mind that a 55 gallon tank won't have 55 gallons of water in it after you put substrate and decor in to it, and it probably won't be filled to the brim either, it will probably have about 50 Gallons of water.

this was done quickly, so I'm not saying it will be spot on by a long way... you will need either a hydrometer, or preferably a refractometer

Thanks a million Jay. 2/3 cup sounds better then what we figured. I'll let you know how it goes next monday or so.

okey dokey, just bear in mind what I said about a 55 gallon tank not having 55 gallons of water in it, hope all goes well, at those levels, rough as they are, you still shouldn't be putting enough salt in to kill your bacteria.. but it's still no guarantee, just a rough conversion...

Causing a recycle is exactly what I do not want to do. Perhaps I will add 1/2cup to be safe. TY again.

2/3 should be fine, if you were putting 1 1/3 in you would be more likely to re-cycle

I always wondered what these Americans were going on about when they used the word "cup" as a measurement!!!!!

So what is a cup in "real" measurements then?