Refractometers

[bladeruner143]

How do I use this thing?! Any help is appreciated!!!

 

[Reefugee]

Try the following link. It does a much better job of explaining than I can. It's pretty simple.

http://www.grapestompers.com/articles/refractometer_use.asp

 

[bobbyblank]

First, put a few drops of calibration fluid on the glass lens then flip the little plastic piece down on top of the glass lens which will kinda squish the water. Then look into the sun or a light. you should see some blue on top and white on bottom that form a horizontal line. Where the 2 meet is what you look at. adjust the little screw until the white/blue line is level with the 1.025 mark. Once calibrated, wipe off the glass lens and put a few drops of tank water on the lens and look into the light again, wherever the white and blue meet on the scale is the salinity of the water. If you dont have the fluid, you can use mine, you live very close to me from what i remember. If you need, i can do it for ya. Hope this helps.

bobby

 

[bobbyblank]

Beat me to it minh

 

[bladeruner143]

Thanks for the replies. I found out how to do this but I used RODI water to calibrate it to 0 then read my SW. Is this way ok?

 

[bladeruner143]

Oh and I compared it with the old swing arm and it was off by 0.002 units! I was just about to top off right now and my swing arm said my sg at 1.026 when it was really at 1.024, right where I want it to be!

 

[shiveley]

well, that might work fine, but i'd recommend picking up some calibration fluid and set to that (which is usually a 35ppt saline solution). that way you have a little better of an indicator than the ro/di.

 

[bladeruner143]

I have the fluid but the only reason I didnt use it was because I didnt know the concentration of the fluid so I wouldnt have know what to calibrate it to!