The 75gal reef tank cycle has started!!!!!!!

I never really went by the "scoops" per gallon thing when mixing salt. I just kept pouring over the course of a few hours until it reached the 1.024 that I shoot for myself.

Once you get to where you are at though, just put in small amounts, like 1/2 a cup at a time, wait about 10-15 mins for it to really disolve throughout the tank, test, and keep adding a little more. A little bit makes it move a lot more once you get to the point you are at.

I guess it isn't as critical for you since you have an RO setup. ;) You can go a little over, tank some water out, replace with RO to bring to back down if you go a little over. Just waste a little salt that way.
 
Yeah I could do that. I guess I have to get use to how much it changes with each scoop over time.
 
No it dose but we put in enough for what we thought was in the setup for water. It's a bit hard to figure out how much there really is in there. So we put 40 cups in knowing that that would not be enough so we could sneak up on it. The 1.016 is where that much got us. We put the salt in yesterday and checked it today to get it time to mix. I put four scoops in and it when up to 1.025. I took some tank water out and put in some RO?DI water and now I'm waiting to see what that gives me.
 
Ya, one thing about mixing salt I have learned is you have to give it time to disolve.

I made that mistake once, mixing the salt, testing 5 mins later, then I used it the next day. Things didn't look right and I retested and it pegged the meter. Only takes learning that one the hard way once. I always gave it 1 hour between each little bit I added when it got to be above 1.010 because each little bit moved the meter a lot, especially in a 30G trashcan. 1 hour was probably overly cautous, but at least 15 mins between pouring in salt and testing I would think.
 
Yeah I took 1 gallon out and put one gallon in and it droped back down to 1.015
 
1 gallon should not make that big of a difference in your setup. With the hydrometer you have, I would do at least 5 tests at a time to verify the accuracy, and again, as Axl once said.. a little patience.. lol.
 
Yeah I'm doing that now. I'm just doing 1 cup at a time and test in all the tanks before adding any more.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
AquariaCentral.com
Top Bottom