LFS gripe (salinity)

[publicshortage]

I just wanted to chime in (Just joined, first post) I am the "Sunday guy" at the LFS in CC and I know we actually keep our salinity a little high(meaning good for corals, misc. ). My only comment is that if someone wants their sg a little lower or higher they should ask. Not a single person has asked me what the salinity of our H2O is. Today the sg was 1.024. Anyway, all that I am saying it that everyone has a different opinion of what the best sg is and the LFS can't have 15 storage tanks holding various degrees of salted h2o.

My LFS Emp. gripe of the day. "what is up with people who don't understand the difference between salt and fresh water?, (and they live on the coast)"

[aggie4231]

i used to help out at one of the better lfs in Houston(Village Tropical Fish). Corals, snails, and hermits were temp acclimated while the fish were unbagged. fish were first un boxed. we used several rubbermaids, buckets, etc.. and IV style drip lines. we used very little water from the shipping bags in the process. Fish going into the fish only system wer drip acclimated to SG~1.018. Shrimp, starfish, and fish going to reef system were acclimated to SG of 1.023-1.025. Depending on what was recieved, who was/wasnt there that night, the acclimation would last from 1-3 hours including the fish being placed into tanks. Most of our dead loss occured in the acclimation buckets.

[jasonC]

well there will be some debate about this, but i will tell you that 1.018-1.021 are perfect for fish, also 1.022-1.025 are perfect for inverts and corals. now u must also remeber that the salinity will flux depending on the temp. also i perfer to drip acclimate most everything except corals. never lost a single fish invert or coral. knock on wood. also with also with ph u also must remeber that in extereme ph levels it will alter how your fish are affectted by amonia and nitrates. i have worked at a few sw fish shops in town and i can tell you that the ones i have seen temp and droped have more turn overs than others. now i will not name any names but thats from personal experince. well i hope this helps

[matt]

well there will be some debate about this, but i will tell you that 1.018-1.021 are perfect for fish, also 1.022-1.025 are perfect for inverts and corals. now u must also remeber that the salinity will flux depending on the temp.

Actually, salinity stays the same regardless of temp, but specific gravity, the way we usually measure it, changes. If you have 35ppt at 60F and raise the temp to 80, the specific gravity would really drop, but you'd still have 35ppt salinity. I agree that fish, especially in transit, seem to be more disease resistent at lower salinity, and that why (I assume) most stores keep their tanks at such a low salinity. I have definitely lost a few shrimp and snails due to not acclimating them to my tank at 1.026 at 80 when they've come from lower salinity, so now I acclimate really slowly in a bucket.