How do you deal with salinity drift?

[Fishmommy]

I skim wet and ATO so my salinity drifts slightly downward over time. How do you typically correct for this - just add a little extra salt water with the water change? No big deal just curious what the standard procedure is.

[Reeferz412]

I usually go 1.026 on WC's, I manually top off ever 2-3 days and the salinity doesnt change. Top off with about 1 gallon of freshwater. You must be adding a lot of freshwater to have your salinity decrease.

[Fishmommy]

Over a 2-3 week period I drop from 1.026 to 1.025
I skim about a gallon a week

[Nace]

I do water changes every week and use that to match the salinity back to 1.026. If you are just drifting that much every 2-3 weeks I don't see it being that much of a danger. I would just top off with the proper salinity to keep it stable.

[Reeferz412]

2-3 weeks with a drop of .01 is not drastic, with adequate water changes(week to two weeks), you can maintain a stable salinity.

[dkeller_nc]

Originally Posted by Fishmommy

Over a 2-3 week period I drop from 1.026 to 1.025
I skim about a gallon a week

Since you have an ATO, this is super easy. Simply park a bucket next to the tank with some pre-made saltwater, and add a cupful every 2-3 days. The tank's water will evaporate down until the ATO kicks in again - presto, instant specific gravity adjustment. I do exactly this for the same reason that you mention.

[Reef Frog]

I wet skim too. If you are skimming out say 1 quart of brown water per day, replace it with that amount of fresh saltwater at the tank's chi rent salinity before the ATO kicks in with RODI water.

[dfwcontract]

As a general rule, I top off with RO water for evaporation, and always do 1.024 to 1.026 for water changes. I do a water change every other weekend, about 20%

[ca1ore]

Originally Posted by dkeller_nc

Since you have an ATO, this is super easy. Simply park a bucket next to the tank with some pre-made saltwater, and add a cupful every 2-3 days. The tank's water will evaporate down until the ATO kicks in again - presto, instant specific gravity adjustment. I do exactly this for the same reason that you mention.

I do a variation on this: just dump a scoop full of salt into the ATO reservoir periodically.

[mkoop]

Originally Posted by dkeller_nc

Since you have an ATO, this is super easy. Simply park a bucket next to the tank with some pre-made saltwater, and add a cupful every 2-3 days. The tank's water will evaporate down until the ATO kicks in again - presto, instant specific gravity adjustment. I do exactly this for the same reason that you mention.

Originally Posted by ca1ore

I do a variation on this: just dump a scoop full of salt into the ATO reservoir periodically.

Great advice right here. I do the same as ca1ore.

[cloak]

Originally Posted by Fishmommy

I skim wet and ATO so my salinity drifts slightly downward over time. How do you typically correct for this - just add a little extra salt water with the water change? No big deal just curious what the standard procedure is.

How often do you do water changes? As long as the variation doesn't drastically change in a short amount of time, I wouldn't worry about it. These corals/fish/invertebrates are a lot more durable than they get credit for IMO.