pga7602
Well-known member
HersheyB, this one is for you. As you remember, about a month ago, HersheyB reported having issues with his salinity because he wasn't keeping his refractometer calibrated. I gave him the whole speel about how I use my wife's refractometer as a fail safe if I'm too off. :debi:
Well, for black friday, I decided I would pull the trigger on a stand alone pinpoint conductivity salinity monitor. It came with calibration fluid and out of the box it was dead on without a need for me to adjust. I stuck it in my tank and.....
1.021
Uh ohhhhhhhh... It quickly dawned on me that all the refractometers were off in the house. By using the the calibration fluid that came with my new toy, I was able to calculate that my refractometers were off by .04! So how did this happen... lesson learned.. never used RO/DI water to calibrate your refractometer. Yes, it's in the instructions that you CAN do this, but it did not work for me.
I took my gear to Bob's tropical and they also confirmed my findings. I was so confused, I even ordered another brand of calibration fluid and all told the same story. Setting my refractometer to zero using MY RO/DI made my readings off by .04. No wonder cheato never does well in my tank!
This also explains why new sps that land in my tank take so darn long to color up :lmao:
Well, for black friday, I decided I would pull the trigger on a stand alone pinpoint conductivity salinity monitor. It came with calibration fluid and out of the box it was dead on without a need for me to adjust. I stuck it in my tank and.....
1.021
Uh ohhhhhhhh... It quickly dawned on me that all the refractometers were off in the house. By using the the calibration fluid that came with my new toy, I was able to calculate that my refractometers were off by .04! So how did this happen... lesson learned.. never used RO/DI water to calibrate your refractometer. Yes, it's in the instructions that you CAN do this, but it did not work for me.
I took my gear to Bob's tropical and they also confirmed my findings. I was so confused, I even ordered another brand of calibration fluid and all told the same story. Setting my refractometer to zero using MY RO/DI made my readings off by .04. No wonder cheato never does well in my tank!
This also explains why new sps that land in my tank take so darn long to color up :lmao:
As far as I know, I was only off by a little in the past, but it may depend on how old the DI is and whether it needs recharging. I'm glad you didn't see a big difference.
