Measuring Salt Without Hydrometer

[Doug62]

Hi all,
I have a tank with mollies in and they have started to develop symptoms typical of the freshwater enviroment they are in(shimmies mainly). So, i have decided to turn the tank brackish, have bought some salt and ordered a hydrometer from the internet which still hasnt arrived. Anyway, the shimmies are getting worse so i was thinking i could add just a small amount of salt to ease things a little. As i dont have a hydrometer a was wondering how much i would need to up the salinity from 1 (being freshwater) to 1.001, which is a fifth of the overall salinity i am going to have in the end. I have used neales Brac-calc and it says that i would need one gram per litre and its a hundred litre tank so that seems pretty straight forward. However, as i need to mix it up first, and a 20 litre buchet is the biggest i have, would it be ok to add the 100grams to the 20 litres then add to the tank?
Hope this makes sense
cheers
doug

 

[nmonks]

What you propose is fine. You could make up a superconcentrated salt solution in a pint pot if you wanted to, so long as you added the resulting solution into the tank a bit at a time. It doesn't matter what size bucket or pot you use, just so long as the salt is dissolved before being poured (slowly) into the aquarium. The salt packet should say how long you want to wait for it to dissolve; it's often around 20 minutes, but some people suggest waiting even longer. At brackish concentrations, it should be relatively quick to dissolve because the time for the salt to dissolve depends on the concentration.

Actually, the limiting factor will be the filter bacteria rather than the mollies (which you could dump straight into low to moderate brackish water without problems). From fresh to SG 1.002-1.003 should be fine, but once you get around 1.005 and upwards, keep a track on nitrites. Mollies are very nitrite tolerant, but other fish in the tank might not be.

Cheers,

Neale

 

[ac106]

While there is probably a better way I would do this:


1) Put the mollies in a small bucket with the water they are in now

2) Add 1 teaspoon of marine salt per US gallon of water (appox 1.005) to the main tank. Add a powerhead and airstone.

3) Drip acclimate the mollies over a few hours.

4) add the mollies to the new brackish tank

 

[AMS]

While there is probably a better way I would do this:


1) Put the mollies in a small bucket with the water they are in now

2) Add 1 teaspoon of marine salt per US gallon of water (appox 1.005) to the main tank. Add a powerhead and airstone.

3) Drip acclimate the mollies over a few hours.

4) add the mollies to the new brackish tank

Sounds good in theory, but like nmonks says "the limiting factor will be the filter bacteria".

 

[Nevergone815]

i like the initial idea the best. i will do this when setting up a brackish tank as it will give you a more accurate measurment in increasing the salenity to what you want it to be! good luck with the mollies!