Wow!! I'm an idiot

[LoJack]

I've always forgotten to add calibration solution to my orders when I buy my dry goods, and I live in a city without an LFS "¦ so I finally got some pinpoint calibration solution to dial in my refractometer

It was WAY OFF!!!

My tank is actually sitting a 1.017 instead of the 1.026 it was telling me it was at

I'll start bringing it up slowly to get back to my target. So much for calibrating with RO or Distilled "¦ clearly wasn't working.

Tank still looks great so I'm not going to over correct in dramatic fashion, just thought I would share for those who haven't calibrated in a while "¦ it can be significantly off in a short period of time.

 

[Polyp Envy]

been there, but mine was high not low. i feel ya, but it happens sometimes

 

[DNA]

What if the calibration solution is the stupid think to take for as the correct salinity?

 

[vette.tech]

^^^always been concerned about THAT possibility as well. I check with rodi and the reference solution and split the difference which in my case was only .001

 

[biggles]

Used RO to calibrate and also found i was keeping very low salinity after who knows how many months, good heads up thread mate :beer:

 

[Ink]

Me too. Calibration with RO is not enough. It's better to use a 35psu solution, because that's the value we need.

 

[evolutionZ]

i was off calibration and was running my sps tank at 1.028-29! i lowered it down to 26 over a couple of weeks.

 

[dkeller_nc]

What if the calibration solution is the stupid think to take for as the correct salinity?

This is one reason that it's wise to make your own calibration solution. Presuming you have a good scale, then there's little that can go wrong.

 

[Breadman03]

This is one reason that it's wise to make your own calibration solution. Presuming you have a good scale, then there's little that can go wrong.

I reload my own ammunition and have a beam scale that is accurate to 1/10 of a grain. A grain is 1/7000 of a pound. Would such a scale be accurate enough for this task? Do you have any recommended recipes? I'll start Googling, but figure I'd ask in case I find a bunch of different stuff. Thanks!