Saltwater Tank Evaporation: An Explainer
- Aug 08, 2022
- Anshika Mishra
- 303 0 0
Your reef tanks are going to evaporate water. There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with it, and in this article, we will not tell you how to deal with evaporation, but how to deal with it quickly with an Auto Top Off.
Evaporation
The challenge here is that the tank is going to evaporate water. Something that you'll see with naked eyes. The water level drops, but what you can't see is as the water leaves, the salt stays behind.
So, the water gets more concentrated, and salinity rises every day. Until, of course, you come by and top off with fresh water and all the levels go back to normal.
Today, you'll hear what kind of water to use to top off the tank, how often to do it, and probably the single most common system upgrade, the Auto Top Off, which does all that for you.
This is the part most reefers get the wrong day one. For some reason, it just seems like you should top off a saltwater tank with saltwater, but that is not the case. If you do that, you will increase the salinity every time you do it.
Keep in mind that when water evaporates, it's just water leaving the tank; all the salt stays behind inside the tank.
So, when you replace the evaporated water, commonly referred to as topping it off, this is down with fresh water—preferably, purified RO DI water. As to how often to do it, well, tanks probably evaporate half a gallon a day.
However, with forgiving corals, you could probably get away with once a week. But a better practice is a couple of times a week. Keep a bucket of freshwater below the tank and scoop some out when you feed your fish.
An Auto-Top-Off
What makes the reefing hobby fun is the acquisition and application of knowledge, then using that combined with technology to solve issues, increase stability, or reduce maintenance. In the same way, a protein skimmer minimizes the need for water changes and related work and, in turn, improves water quality.
An auto-top-off reduces the work by topping the tank off automatically, which increases the tank's stability.
Stable salinity means most other elements in the water are durable as well, at least on a day-to-day basis.
An Auto Top-Off is made up of a water level sensory, ether optical eye, or float switch which recognizes some water evaporated and then turns on the pump to replace it.
In this case, you can throw the same five-gallon bucket under the tank,w hic with tanks like these could last for about a week. You could also use a fancy 5-10 gallon auto top-off reservoir from the Trigger system.
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