How often to i put salt in my 55gallon fish tank / aquarium?
May 28th, 2010 by admin | Filed under Fish Tank Aquariums.Fish Tank Aquariums
As you may know, a brackish water tank is made from 50%freshwater and 50%saltwater. and it may or may not be hard to set-up the tank. I just need to know how often i put the special salt in the tank. I have a 55gal tank and i am using InstantOcean salt. I just need to know how often i should be placing the salt into the tank. Please only answer if you are 100% sure. i dont want my figure eight puffers dieing when i get them. =( thnks for the answers
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Salt will not evaporate out of the water. So, if you take out 10 gallons of water when you clean your tank, you will add the proper amount of salt to the 10 gallons. You do not need to add salt to any water you add to top your tank off due to evaporation.=
Research this online and with fish experts at the pet shop/fish shop if you want to be sure.
Only add salt when you do water changes, and when setting the tank up. When you’re topping your tank off from evaporation, use freshwater, because salt doesn’t evaporate. Whenever you do a water change though, make sure the salinity of the new water matches that of the remaining tank water. You’ll need a hydrometer to measure the specific gravity of course.
Also, remember to acclimate the puffers VERY slowly. They’re most likely being kept in freshwater, so the change to brackish will cause them to die of shock if you just dump them in. Here’s a good acclimation technique: Pour the water in the bag and the puffer into a container of some sort. Every 15 minutes, add a small cup of water from your tank until the container is full. Then put the fish in your tank.
I agree with John and Junie, you only add the salt when you take it out during water changes, use fresh when you top off for evaporation.
But I also wanted to say that brackish doesn’t have to be a 50/50 mix. It’s anything in the range of 1.005 to 1.016 salinity. Some fish like the freshwater end like figure 8 puffers but other like the saltier end like green spotted puffers. And some are happy just as long as there’s some salt. If you have your tank at 50/50, it’s a little high for your puffers, you can drop it a little and save on some salt.
About figure 8s – http://www.thepufferforum.com/forum/ug.php/v/PufferPedia/Brackish/T_Biocellatus/