# Water Salinity Levels?



## ZaneD (Feb 28, 2017)

Can someone please school me on water salinity? I understand it is something I need to be aware of for my inshore/ ICW fishing, but I haven't been able to find a lot of info on it. My main questions are:

1. What is a good website, app, etc to check the current levels for a given area? (I live in Ormond beach, FL if location matters)
2. What is an "ideal" or recommended level I should be looking for? 

Thanks in advance for any advice or help.


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## CaptDanS (Oct 26, 2017)

Sea water salinity is measured as specific gravity this can be measured with a hydrometer.
Seawater is around 1.028 g/cm3 depending on temperature.
Fresh water is around 1.000.
An inexpensive hydrometer can be purchase at an aquarium store that does saltwater fish.


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## not2shabby (Sep 14, 2016)

SG is typically translated to concentration or the concentration is estimated using conductivity. Most states monitor surface water quality with stations like weather stations. In a state like FL where the coastal environment is really important, I would not be surprised to find something on the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) website. Good luck though. Govt. websites are not known for being user friendly or navigable.

I can look out my office window and see two Surface Water Quality Monitoring Stations that read water level, temperature, and salinity. The information is available on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) website. Pretty handy stuff.

As far as ideal salinity ranges, you'll have to find a local resource for that info. Typical seawater is between 30 parts per thousand (ppt) and 35 ppt. As a reference, drinking water must be below 1 ppt and is usually less than 0.5 ppt. The dead sea is about 340 ppt.

Redfish typically prefer 30-35ppt, but they can be acclimated to fresh water and even thrive in some hypersaline bays (50+ ppt). They need about 25ppt or greater to spawn.

I have no idea about tarpon or snook. I haven't seen either one firsthand.


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## lemaymiami (Feb 9, 2007)

Here's what I did - all those years ago... when I wanted to learn a bit about practical salinity in various places. I went to a shop that sold aquarium supplies and bought a cheap salt meter (just a thin plastic box with pivoting indicator to show PPM (parts per million) of salt in the water... The first place I used it was the shrimp tanks at my local bait shop to get a base line (shrimp and bait like pilchards or white bait have to have a basic level of salt in the water or they die off...). Once I had that reading I then made a point of sampling the various places in the interior of the Everglades where I was guiding to see exactly what the salinities were... Remember in interior bays, brackish rivers, etc. nothing is fixed and stable - it's always changing depending on the amount of rain and the current tides (an incoming tide brings good salty ocean waters into any interior area - if it can reach that far...).

Where I fish mostly - the interior of the salt or brackish Everglades all the way out to the coast where it's pure saltwater... things change constantly. We only get two seasons - a wet and a dry... We're in our wet season now - and it will rain every day (a little or a lot) for six months - and that will dramatically effect the water salinity each day (and as a result also the water quality...). Our dry season begins each year right around Halloween - and it just won't rain much at all for about six months. During the dry season the interior waters will grow a tiny bit more salty with each tide change.

Lastly, long before I ever started checking salinity levels with a meter (haven't used a meter in some years now...) I was taught to simply dip my hand in the water wherever I was and then taste to tell how much (or how little) salt was in the water I was fishing.... Do that a bit and you'll have a much better idea of why fish are where they are (or where they aren't...).

Hope this helps - remember as well that when it's raining lots and lots -many rivers that drain into coastal ares begin pumping out pure freshwater into the salty coast (and that plume may extend a few miles offshore of a big river mouth..). The "taste test" will give you a rough idea of just what's going on during those times.. One last thought.. some fish are much better able to tolerate less and less salt - others are not. When brackish areas turn fresh the first fish that disappear in my area are the speckled trout, along with most of the baitfish.... but reds and snook and tarpon are quite able to tolerate the changes by comparison....


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## jimsmicro (Oct 29, 2013)

You can catch redfish 4-5+ miles up the rivers sometimes so they definitely tolerate fresh water well. Snook can practically live in it, and do in the winter around here.


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## EvanHammer (Aug 14, 2015)

not2shabby said:


> Redfish typically prefer 30-35ppt, but they can be acclimated to fresh water and even thrive in some hypersaline bays (50+ ppt). They need about 25ppt or greater to spawn.
> .


While they typically don't spawn in freshwater I thought TPWD had documented spawning redfish in Calaveras?

I know they will tolerate pretty fresh water - we catch them all the time in water that's ~5 PPT.


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## not2shabby (Sep 14, 2016)

EvanHammer said:


> While they typically don't spawn in freshwater I thought TPWD had documented spawning redfish in Calaveras?
> 
> I know they will tolerate pretty fresh water - we catch them all the time in water that's ~5 PPT.


You're right that they CAN spawn in brackish and nearly fresh waters. I misspoke. The survival rate of eggs is much greater in waters above 25 ppt. They can spawn below that, but the survival rate diminishes.


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## Thomas C. Matthews (Jun 16, 2018)

Red fish can live in Freshwater as long as there is enough dissolved calcium. This is why there are some freshwater lakes in Texas stocked with redfish. 

There are also areas in Texas and Luisiana where you can catch Reds, Black Bass and fresh water cat fish in the same spot.

Tarpon, snook, redfish, and some sharks can all lie in fresh water. So do not get to caught up in is the water to fresh. Usually I pay more attention to bait. No bait no fish. In general larger fish are more tolerant of water condition than the smaller bait fish. They will also follow the bait if it leaves or gets flushed out by rain.

Large freshwater catfish have been know to gorge themselves post spring spawn in brackish to nearly salt water on abundant menhaden. This is clear on the Colorado river in Matagorda where I have caught redfish, channel and blue cats all at the same time. So the same is true of some freshwater fish tolerating salt water. 

The main difference is channel and blue cats cannot live full time in fresh water.


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