Salinity Reading @ 0

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Hi All

Totally new the reef keeping, I picked up my tank and components yesterday came home and began setting everything up. The tank is a Nano Nuvo 16 capacity is 60l, I read the instructions on the reef salt container if my calculations are correct I used 7 small tea cups of salt for the entire aquarium.

I completed the this last night around 8 pm and at 8a m this morning I tested the salinity with my hydrometer and I am getting a reading of 0. Is this normal? Should I be waiting longer for all the salt to dissolve in the tank?

I took some salt mixed it in a glass and poured that water into the hydrometer which then shows a reading higher than 0. So my understanding is that the equipment isn't faulty.

One last thing I didn't use RO water instead tap water is this advisable in SA?

Any assistance will be really appreciated
 
Tap water is not advisable, rather use R.O. water. What type of hydrometer do you have? Is it one of those swing arm jobs? They are not reliable. Rather get a proper refractometer. If you used 7 cups of salt of 60 litres, you will get a reading higher than zero.

Did all the salt dissolve? Is there any salt still lying in the tank?
 
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All salts measure and weigh different, but as a general baseline when mixing salt I use 350grams of salt for every 10 litres of water, then adjust accordingly once it's mixed, so for your 60 litre tank you should be using roughly 2.1 kg's of salt. I don't know how much is in a teacup, you'll need to weigh it and check. But as a wild guess, a teacup will probably hold about 200grams of salt??? so if you've used 7 cups that's about 1.4kg's, you're about 3 or 4 cups short.

Have you got a kitchen scale? Use that to measure your salt, it will make things a lot easier and take a lot of the guessing out of it.

And as NJH said, RO water is much rather preferred, but too late now. :) Do your water top-ups with RO water if possible.
 
Hi Guys

Thanks for the prompt response, I did some snooping around in this section of the forum and since the time I posted this I have managed to completely drain all the water from the tank. Im going to head out now and get my hands on some RO water instead (want to do this right the first time around) It is the plastic swing arm hydrometer and I will be getting my hands on a refractometer this morning too.

Wish I had read through this thread last night properly instead of wasting a day :( but I guess this is how you learn. So I am starting off from scratch today.

Can you advise if it would be worthwhile purchasing the water from my local pet shop and perhaps a little live rock while I am there today? Reason I ask is because I have around 20kg's of dry rock and I have read that placing some live rock in will help with the cycle?
 
You are going to have to get the hang of water chemistry, it is the largest part of this hobby, so you may as well start while there is no risk of livestock loss. If you buy water now, you may never get started with figuring it out.
Definitely buy a piece of live rock to seed the tank.
 
60 litre tank you should be using roughly 2.1 kg's of salt.
Thats about right. Generally, a 25 kg gives 750kg. 20kg salt gives 600L water. So 60L is 2kg. 30L is 1kg.


Buy one of those digital kitchen scales. Mine can go up to 10kg, bit overkill but it works.
 
Hi All

Ok so I purchased 40 liters of RO water this morning from Jungle Aquatics in Fourways and I took the hydrometer with to test and make sure its working. Tested it in two of their tanks and the readings were accurate. Came home and decided to mix my salt in the buckets before trowing the water in tested and tweaked the amounts of salt until I started getting a reading of between 1.021 and 1.023 :)

Agree with you Jimilutz I need to get the water chemistry correct before I move forward. The salesman offered me the salt mix at R3.50 a liter was tempted but luckily read your post before I got there.

Dexter I'm in the sunninghill area,

I didn't buy a piece of live rock today figured the water chemistry was more important but now that I have the salinity issue sorted I kinda wish I did!
 
Remember that you will have evaporation so remember to top up with R.O. water to keep salinity stable. Better yet, put an auto top up in place.
 
Thought I would share some of the pics from today, still planning on starting a build thread in the nano reef forum. Will change the rock setup once everything settles down..

Thanks again everyone

156ep2u.jpg


28syknr.jpg


331f5v4.jpg
 
Glad you came right. Wanted to help you out with RO water if you didn't came right. Some good advise is start looking for a RO machine. Will save you lot of effort in the future.
 
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