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Home      Reply		Viewed: 296 -- Replies: 13
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Posted	How quickly can SG be reduced?
14-04-2006 13:46 by Lindsay	When I added my second lot of fish, 2 clowns (to existing 3 chromis) they were both dead within 48 hours. It turns out that my hydrometer is reading too low and the SG had been too high. How slowly do I need to reduce the SG to ensure no harm to my chromis and turbo snails?
14-04-2006 14:11 by dean	hi whats the salinty on ???
14-04-2006 14:24 by Lindsay	It was 1.027 when I thought it was 1.023. My fish supplier said it would be better to be about 1.021 whilst I am still stocking. Last night I took 6 litres out of my 160 litre tank and added plain (dechlorinated and buffered. This has reduced the SG to a true 1.025.
14-04-2006 19:22 by Penny1	hi irun my reef tank at 1.026 -1.027 and my fish are fine which include two common clowns and three chromis amongst other fish may i ask how long you acclimatised the fish for and is your tank mature yet
14-04-2006 19:46 by Lindsay	Hi Penny I started setting up the tank 6 months ago, and only in last month added 3 chromis before the clowns. My understanding is that fish will survive at the SG I had, but I did not know my hydrometer was reading 3 lower than the tank actualy was. Hence I am sure that proper aclimitisation would have worked!. My local dealer says it is best to keep the SG low until tank is fully stocked, and then I can increase the SG if I want invertibraes. he also said fish cope bettergoing from a high SG to low SG than the other way round. Trouble is I forgot to ask him how slowly to lower SG without stressing existing chromis. One last point I should mention, I did not realise how quickly pH can drop, and so it was going too acidic when I added the Clowns!
14-04-2006 19:53 by Penny1	How much did the ph drop dowm to and did you properly acclimatise the fish by slowly adding your tank water to the bag also what are your ammonia and nitrate/nitrite readings, did the fish look ok when you bought them
14-04-2006 20:13 by Lindsay	pH probably dropped from 8.2 to 7.7 in 48 hours. (It had been stable for days, but I had just dropped a little the day before I bought the clowns, and I didn't realise how quick it drops). Despite my local dealer identifying a sg and pH problem with my tank, he was willing to replace fish FOC once I had tank under control again! However as it is my fault, we will come to an arrangement for replacement fish.
14-04-2006 20:21 by Penny1	ok but i doubt that it was the ph and sg that killed the clowns and since you hav"not answered my questions that all the help i can give you
14-04-2006 21:19 by Lindsay	Sorry Penny didn't mean to ignore some of your questions. Nitrite <0.3mg/l, Nitrate a bit above 12.5mg/l but below 25mg/l. Ammonia I don't measure. Acclimatised temperature by at least 15 mins of bag in tank. Then over the next 45 mins, adding tank water to bag before releasing fish. Unfortunately my question hasn't ben answered either, but I am interested in what you have to say.
16-04-2006 09:36 by Penny1	ok, ur nitrate levels is alot higher than it should be, should be no more than 0.3, how big is tank and do you do regular water changes, do you use RO water. As for reducing SG remove 5 gals and replace with 2.5 gals of fresh, leave an hour then test level again if still high add more fresh if low add saltwater. Do you lose much water through evaporation, if so you need to top up with fresh RO water.
18-04-2006 10:11 by Alan	This is how I run my tank sg 1.026 as is the case with natural sea water. The advantage of running this high is the additional buffering capacity of the water. I would also get a refractometer I personally think hydrometers should be banned the level of inaccuracy is beyond disturbing. What filtration method do you use? If the lowest reading your nitrite test kit can read is 0.3 mg/l it is not good enough as levels this high can kill fish you need a kit that will read down to zero. Nitrate in my experience at even 50 mg/l is not detrimental to fish in fact most fish shops will be louth to admit how high their nitrates are! 12.5-25mg/l is no problem but admittedly is not ideal. The best level for nitrate is up to 5 mg/l or ppm as this acts as a mild fertilizer if you like for the symbiotic algae living in the corals any lower and corals will not grow as quickly. Do you have live rock in your system? If not I would suggest adding some also have you ever used a copper treatment on this tank? If so you may never be able to keep inverts safely in the system as copper has a tendency to leach from all decor for sometimes years. If you ever suffer a whitespot out break as you intend to keep a reef I would suggest dropping the salinity over a period of 3 or 4 days to 1.014-1.017. For a duration of about 6 weeks, this should not be detrimental to inverts although ph will need to be monitored closely as well as calcium levels. What sg is the shoop running at? It may be they are running at a very low salinity in there fish system I know my lfs runs at 1.019 if this is the case I would spend at least 2 hours aclimatising the fish in the bag every 10 mins adding a couple of egg cup fulls of water I tend to put a dvd on while I do this otherwise it can get a little boring and you risk rushing things. I suspect it may have been osmotic shock that effected the new additions.
19-04-2006 19:26 by Lindsay	Thanks for your replies. I'll try and answer allthe questions. My tank is 160 litres. (Aqua one AR-850). LFS runs sg of 1.022. Conflicting information from Penny and Alan about Nitrate & Nitrite levels are confusing! I know Nitrate could be lower but should be OK for Clown and Chromis (3 Chroimis doing well)I have not come accross a kit to measure Nitrite below 0.3. Hopefully things will be tighter controlled as I gain experience. SG now down to 1.022. LFS suggests that I kep the SG low untill tankd fully stocked with fish. I have about 10Kg of live rock in the tank - stabilised over a peroid of 4 months. The rock has lots of different coloured life on it, as well as copepods on some areas. I have not yet done any copper treatments. Adding inverts is a long way off I think. I do not use RO water (yet), and so far have only topped up because of evapouration. Water changes are notyet part of routine as Nitrate/Nitrite levels did not seem to warrent changes. If osmic shock as Alan and LFS suggest was the problem, water changes would not have made any difference. In processs of time I intend to add a protein skimmer. Ther does not seem the need yet with such a small stock of fish. Therefore as my stock increases, I inrend to initiate water changes and then add a skimmer. Filtration is ceremaic beads and filter material (as supplied with the tank except the activated carbon).
20-04-2006 09:31 by Alan	I'm not sure if penny was mixing up the nitrite and nitrate in her reply it is nitrite that is extremely toxic hence the ability to detect any is a prolem in my mind, there are many test kits that will read down to zero for nitrite and that is what I would expect in a cycled system what test kit manufacturer are you using? If you get a copy of pfk you can have a read about a readers reef and see how succesful some of these tanks are take a look at the water parameters you will find ammonia and nitrite are alway undetectable and nitrate will normally be around the 5-10ppm mark. As far as you carrying out water changes I would suggest you start but do not use tap water the problem with using tap water is the heavy metal content that is detrimental and often fatal to inverts over time the life on your live rock will start to die as a result of tap water use. Equally tap water often contains high levels of organics namely nitrate and sometimes nitrite as well as phosphates this will ultimately lead to an unpleasant algae problem. Invest in an RO unit as soon as you can www.ro-man.com is a very good source of high quality good value RO systems. Osmotic shock is still the most likely cause in my mind as I said spend around 2 hours aclimatising fish by using the egg cup method as I suggested or alternatively set up a drip loop using airline and a jug of water above the tank full of tank water 5 drops per minute would be a good place to start increasing to 20 drops per minute after about an hour. One thing that concerns me is the use of live rock and external filters with biological media in them with live rock no other biological filtration should be used as it inhibits the effectiveness of a live rock system and will result in a build up of nitrates. My tank runs on live rock a really poor diy skimmer and a DSB with an algae scrubber on top my nitrates are less than 5 ppm, I only carry out water changes to remineralise the tank with minerals that corals will have used not as a means of diluting pollutants. I have no other biological filtration on my tank when I did my nitrate levels were over 50 ppm not ideal in a reef tank although the softies I was keeping at the time were uneffected but it was detrimental to the health of shrimps that I had sadly it resulted in deformities as they shed their exoskeletons and also an unstable ph. If you are on a tight budget I would suggest you go for an internal skimmer as soon as you can these are the cheapest skimmers lees make a good one go on the comparison pages and take a look I noticed an error on this page about these skimmers though the smallest is rated to 30 gallons the medium sized to 60 gallons and the largest one is rated to even more. You need a powerful air pump to go with it. I have been doing a lot of research into skimmers and I have come to the conclusion that they have become to efficient and are actually detrimental to a reef system as the more efficient ones will strip out beneficial organisms as well as protein which ultimately results in nitrate hence my renewed respect for the simplicity of air driven skimmers. I am sure many will disagree with me on this topic though. I would subscribe to pfk or another magazine and do some serious reading, it sounds like the shop you go to is a good one but bare in mind they do have profits to make and whilst the expensive skimmers may be an attractive prospect with all their claims are they really necessary?
20-04-2006 22:10 by Lindsay	Thanks again Alan. My LFS is currently "featured" in the latest PFK! Thanks for the skimmer information. My initial reading caused me to look at skimmers to ensure that I could fit one without movint my tank (which is haklf in an alcove). The LFS was very helpful in this respect, but I am running up my tank with their advice. A skimmer is not high on the priority list. Unfortunately I was given the tank etc for my 50th birthday. It was bought at a shop I didn't get on with (although others find it good), and so my LFS was mistified when my Hydrometer was reading low. He always advises customers to calibrate a new hydrometer against his refractometer. Only on this occasion, as I did not get the hydrometer at his shop, I never got the advice! My tap water seems to be of good quality, and so far RO water is not necessary. Anyway my LFS will allow regular customers to take RO water from his system free! I use Tetratest kits. Your comments about filters with biological material make sense to me, that is why I have not added the activated carbon supplied witht the tank filtrations system (I also checked with LFS!).

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