The Puffer Forum

We are adding marine salt to our 55 FW tank. We estimated add apox 2 1/2 cups of marine salt in the water change to get the salt up to around .002 Is this about right?

How much of a water change do you do?

15g per week normaly.

It's about a 1/2 cup per gallon to get to 1.022 I think or 1.020. Either way you can always add more salt.... it's a lot hardener to get it out. I suck at math so I am no help on the formula.

My goal is to get the salt to .002 I do not want to add to much salt the first time. I do not think testing the salt level before I add it will do me any good for the first few times because I'm raising the salinity of the whole tank not just adding replaced water to keep it the same.

Because I'm new at mixing the salt I want to double check my figures w/ someone experienced before I do this. I do not want to crash my tank.

The type of salt you use will make the amount needed vary slightly too. If you increase it a little to much (to 1.003 or 1.004) nothing major should happen. Your numbers sound about right though, and if it's a little to much just remove a little water and add some salt. Maybe just do 2 cups to be safe.

I add my salt by tablespoons and teaspoons so that I can raise the salt level very slowly. My hydrometer for my brackish tank got stepped on when I upgraded the tank so I added about 3 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons to my 29 gallon. I have to get a new hydrometer so I can't tell you what the level is but its not very high so I don't shock the fish or the new tank.

I am doing this right now and 2 1/2 cups looks like way to much. I'm not going to add all the salt water I mixed.

What is going into the tank? If you don't mind me asking, when I am doing water changes on my 55 gallon salt water tank I use half cups and I think to make it about 1.021 it takes about 5, maybe a little more. I didn't do the last water change so my memory is a little fuzzy but I think its about 2 to 3 cups to make it just barely salt water.

2- 1 3/4 baby gsp are currently in the tank. They seem to like the change in the water. They are exploring like they are looking for something and do seem very happy. Depending on where I set the hydrometer it is reading .004 to .002 Thx Happy because you confirmed I was adding to much marine salt to start with. I messed up the calculations somehow it seems. I only added a quarter of the water mixed with all that salt then stopped because I could see it looked like a lot with the little I added into the tank. I will ck the water parameters again by tomorrow.

Ya I am so careful about adding the salt because I don't want to hurt the fish or bacteria in the tank. I always add small amounts and then test before adding the salt to the tank. I'm new to the whole marine thing, so I think sometimes I am too careful, it takes me a long time to do water changes. Glad to hear that your babies are doing well.

You can slowly raise SG easily with this formula. Remove 25% of the water in the tank. Check the SG. To raise by .002 simply add water mixed .008 higher than required, dilution will do the rest. So to go from zero to 1.002 on a 55g, add 13.37g water mixed to 1.008. It sounds harder than it is.

I need to get this sorted out. Can you help me with this Pufferpunk please?

Ref: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=11432&p=116474#p116474

Pufferpunk wrote:A little less than 1/2 cup/5g. Still check w/your hydrometer, to be sure.

PP you advised me to the above in another topic. I added 2 1/2 cups of marine salt to a 4g bucket of water and it was way to much for my 55g tank. I poured a quarter of the bucket into the tank and saw it was a lot, stopped and tested. luckly after I added FW to fill up the tank the salt tested at .002 there about. When you say less then 1/2 cup/5g do you mean 1/2 c per 5g of the water I take out for the water change? I change 15g per week. Would a little under 1 1/2 c give me .002 in the 55g tank?

Bump bump for someone who can help me please. I'm not understanding how much salt to add to keep from going over .002 each time I up the salt.

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.