some corals are dying

[dviper150]

I did something very stupid today and didn't realize it would be harmful until after I did it. I was in hurry this morning and noticed my salinity in my reef tank was a little low towards 1.023 so instead of mixing water like I normally do and then adding it to the tank, I directly added some salt to the tank. I noticed my frogspawn and hammer coral close up a few minutes after I added the salt and figured it was probably because of some salt that landed on it. Didn't think it would be harmful since the salt would dissolve. I came back from school around 3pm and noticed part of the 2 montis I have are dying from part of it which I am guessing which is also from salt landing on it.

Any idea of what I should do about this? The rest of my corals are doing fine. Zoas are opened up and the salt didn't land on any of my sps. Just a few corals and those corals aren't doing so hott now. Any help would be appreciated on what to do next. Thanks.

[Agu]

Wait and hope, not much else you can do.

Undissolved salt landing on corals can be nasty. Aiming a power head to remove any residue might help but after a few hours the damage is done.

good luck ....

[Jandree22]

Nothing really can be done at this point. Any raw salt is dissolved into the water by now, and any damage to coral is already done. Just don't, you know... do it again. I mean, it says not to right on the Instant Ocean bucket :p

Best way to raise salinity IMO is replace evaporated water (very slowly, as you typically would) with the saltwater rather than fresh. This will notch it up slowly. Hopefully the others pull through... I imagine you're past the worst of it.

[dviper150]

The 2 montis have parts of it dead already but I hope it doesn't spread to the rest. the frogspawn and hammer coral recovered nicely and opened up. They were sucked in all the way so that all you saw was the skeleton and no tentacles.

I had the salt bags and didn't have the bucket so wasn't aware that I shouldn't put in the salt directly. Now I know though. I normally do raise evaporated water by premixing salt but was in a hurry today and didn't realize that the salt could kill corals if not mixed prior to adding. Hopefully the 2 montis will recover. everything else is doing great though.