Check your salinity

[northbay-reefer]

I have been keep ing all of my tank's parameter in check, doing bi-weekly water changes, cleaning the ckimmer ... but why some of my corals experienced burned tips? alk 7.0, cal 420, mag 1350 ..... hmmmmmm, the only possibility is the salinity ... so I checked it last night while doing a water change ... yeap sure enough is was at 1.028 ... my tank usually runs at 1.026.

So once in a while make sure to check your salinity.

 

[Grant W]

Same thing happened to me recently, I usually run at 1.025 and mine was up to 1.027. It turned out my refractometer had somehow drifted out. The only way I found out was I had bought a swing arm hydrometer for doing quick check of my salinity and couldn't believe it was so far off and it wasn't.

 

[Reef Bass]

You guys seem to be forgetting the natural tendency of a reef tank to increase in salinty over time. My understanding is that it has something to do with free sodium combining with available chlorine to form: sodium chloride (salt), and hence the gradual rise.

All of those who attended baymac last year received refractometer calibration fluid, which I hope everyone used to calibrate their refractometers. I also keep a swing arm handy by my sump. While swing arm refractometers are notoriously inaccurate, they are consistent with their inaccuracy. So by comparing the swing arm value to the calibrated refractometer value, one can see how far the swing arm is off and then adjust appropriately after reading, yielding in effect a calibrated swing arm refractometer. For example, mine underreads by 0.001, so when it reads 1.024, the actual value is 1.025.

 

[northbay-reefer]

I don't know about forgeting, I just didn't know ... LOL

I do have a swing arm that I used for that purpose too ... it's funny how the three of us are doing the same thing coming up with the same idea. I just use a marker to mark where it should be and use it to make a quick check.