Mindflux Posted May 18, 2011 Share Posted May 18, 2011 Making some saltwater to hold my live rock while I get my tank dialed in. I'm using Red Sea Coral pro, and at 1.025 SG it wants 1.6 pounds per 5 gallons of water. So with this batch of roughly 20 gallons I added 6.2 pounds of salt. The RIO 1700 is doing a fab job of mixing the stuff, in fact there's barely any trace of salt in the bottom of my mixing container and I've got the heater set at 78 (ish). Water is as far as I can tell clear as it can be. When can I safely add my live rock? The rock's been in buckets about 24 hours and I need to get some flow over it. I haven't tested my actual SG yet, I'll do that here shortly but as long as it's 1.021 - 1.025 is it safe to add my rock? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindflux Posted May 18, 2011 Author Share Posted May 18, 2011 Somehow I'm over SG by a large percentage according to my refractometer, like 1.035 I think.. having a hard time focusing into that thing. I guess my water measurement is off. I need to get a better measuring system going. But for now, how do I determine how much water I need to get my SG right? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VooDoo Posted May 18, 2011 Share Posted May 18, 2011 just slowly add rodi water Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VooDoo Posted May 18, 2011 Share Posted May 18, 2011 with red coral pro, just mix 1/2 cup to 1 gallon of fresh water Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wa1tx Posted May 18, 2011 Share Posted May 18, 2011 Link has a calculator that you may be able to use to help figure out how to adjust the salinity. http://www.saltyzoo.com/SaltyCalcs.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atxmandarin Posted May 18, 2011 Share Posted May 18, 2011 mindflux, get a refractometer and make it your best friend Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindflux Posted May 18, 2011 Author Share Posted May 18, 2011 mindflux, get a refractometer and make it your best friend I've got one and it's calibrated. Turns out I just had less water than I thought, added nearly another bucket full (whatever that volume turned out to be I still don't know) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindflux Posted May 18, 2011 Author Share Posted May 18, 2011 Ok well I migrated my LR over to my "fresh" SW about 30 mins ago. I need to give it a good scrubbing and a RODI dip before tossing it in my tank. Need to make up a batch of SW for the tank too. Kind of a conundrum since I'm using my mixing container to clean the LR. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+etannert Posted May 18, 2011 Share Posted May 18, 2011 For the first time adding water, you can mix in the tank as long as there's no coral or livestock in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindflux Posted May 18, 2011 Author Share Posted May 18, 2011 For the first time adding water, you can mix in the tank as long as there's no coral or livestock in there. That's what I thought too, but mhart032 (whom I bought my tank from) told me it may be problematic to have sand in the tank as it may trap salt which can dissolve later as things stir up from livestock. Obviously I don't want a large SG spike when the tank is just starting. So right now, my tank sits with 20lbs of damp sand in it (from washing/rinsing) until I can premix some more saltwater. Not a big deal, I need to wire things up anyway so the weight of the water not being there helps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindflux Posted May 18, 2011 Author Share Posted May 18, 2011 Cleaned off my LR. Now to rinse bucket and wait for RODi to get made. The rock was pretty stinky too. WHEW. Ignore the floating brush. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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