EMERGENCY!! Please HELP

doobiej · #1 12-25-2010, 04:11 PM

the top off started at 10:00pm last night and I noticed at 6:00am when my daughter woke me up for xmas.

my corals look bad, my hippo tang is not looking great either.

the r/o top off is also cold water so my temp dropped to 73.

i had one 50 gallon tub of mixed water made up so I already swapped that in but it only raised my salinity a little bit.

not a good present to wake up to.

my tank is 220 and my sump is another 75 gallons or so, im not sure how much salt it will take to get it back but any amount will help

xtreme · #2 12-25-2010, 04:18 PM

I'm not in Airdrie but if you can't find any salt closer to you I have a bucket of IO. I am in the SE not far from Golds.

michika · #3 12-25-2010, 04:21 PM

I can also put out a bucket for you to come grab if you can't find anything else.

When you find salt make sure you're raising the SG back up gradually.

fishytime · #4 12-25-2010, 04:25 PM

I work for Red Coral in the north and only live 10 minutes from the shop.......I could go and open the shop if you wanna buy a couple buckets.....PM me your phone # if you wanna go that route.....

Myka · #5 12-25-2010, 04:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michika

When you find salt make sure you're raising the SG back up gradually.

Very important! You can lower salinity quickly and not cause the critters too much discomfort, but raising the salinity is tough on them, and you can easily kill them all. I would plan to raise salinity over the course of at least a week, making pauses in the raising if the critters are looking stressed. While the salinity is still low keep a particularly close eye on inverts (anemones, crustaceans, etc). Corals may not be too impressed either, but the fish won't care. When raising the salinity the inverts and the fish will be the ones most prone to damage due to the increase, and the corals should improve as salinity goes up. It will be a balancing game.

ALang · #6 12-25-2010, 04:36 PM

So that'll give you some breathing room, at least. I'd not panicked too much, now, unless you can get to a pail of salt. Do the raising a bit at a time. Why do we always run out in the middle of night or on Christmas DAY, when everything's closed??
Good on Fishytime to offer to open the store for you, though.

Binare · #7 12-25-2010, 04:41 PM

You guys are awesome, my buckets up for offer as well, but its only half or so of seachem. Im in tuxedo

doobiej · #8 12-25-2010, 04:58 PM

thanks everyone for your offers, PM sent to fishytime.

how slowly should I be raising the salinty?

what is the best way?

can I do several small changes with high salinity like 1.03?

daniella3d · #9 12-26-2010, 11:41 PM

+1 on that. dropping it to 1.015 won't affect the fish (not the same for corals) but raising it must be done very very slowy, no more than 0.003 per day as it could kill the fish.

I went from 1.09 to 1.024 in 5 days and all my fish were fine. 0.003 per day.

For the corals though, I would try to get things back to normal faster than a week.

Myka · #10 12-27-2010, 02:03 AM

Fyi, once you get to 1.020 the corals should be ok. Not to say they won't have been damaged/stressed by the lower salinity. What I mean is once you get to 1.020 there is no need to rush to get that last bit in. What was your specific gravity originally at? How are things looking today? Any ammonia?