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ADJUST SALINITY

RO/DI to add to bring salinity down, or salt to add to bring it up, without shocking anything.

System volume
Net water, not tank rating. Use the Tank Volume calculator if you have not measured it.
Current salinity, ppt
Target salinity, ppt
Salt brand, if raising
Derived from the density of seawater rather than from a label. A sound starting point for any brand. Weigh, mix, measure, then correct.
Days to spread it over
Fresh water to add36.50 → 35.00 ppt
3.21gallons of RO/DI
Per day over 3
1.07gal
4.1 L a day. Slow is the whole point.
Or swap this much out
3.08gal
Remove that much tank water and replace it with RO/DI. Same result, no volume increase.
Volume rises to
78.2gal
Adding water raises the level. Make sure the sump can take it, or use the swap method.
S.G. moves
1.0275 → 1.0264

Dilute slowly. Add the RO to the sump over hours, not minutes, and never pour it into the display. Salinity dropping fast is harder on corals and inverts than the high reading you are correcting.

MethodFormula and sources

RO to add = V × (S₀/S₁ − 1) = 284 × (36.50/35.00 − 1) = 12.2 L

Lowering salinity is conservation of salt. The salt already in the tank is fixed, so adding fresh water spreads it through a larger volume: S₁ = S₀ × V ÷ (V + added). Solve for the water to add and you get V × (S₀/S₁ − 1).

That formula raises the water level, which a full sump may not accommodate. The alternative is a swap: remove V × (1 − S₁/S₀) litres of tank water and replace it with the same volume of RO/DI. Same final salinity, same total volume.

Raising salinity is the salt mix calculation applied to the difference. Dissolve it in a bucket of tank water first, because dry salt hitting the sump raises alkalinity and pH locally enough to cause precipitation.

The gentlest way up is to stop topping off with RO and top off with mixed saltwater instead. Evaporation then concentrates the tank at exactly the rate it evaporates, which is slow and steady.

Speed matters more than the destination. Most reef livestock handles 33 to 36 ppt without complaint. What causes damage is moving through that range quickly. Hold changes to under 1 ppt a day and inverts will not notice.

Correct the cause as well as the reading. Salinity that drifted up means top off is not keeping pace, and salinity that drifted down usually means an ATO overshooting or a leak.

Sources: UNESCO EOS-80 / Millero & Poisson 1981 · Red Sea Salt manual (PDF)

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