Neptune Aquatics

How are you measuring salinity?

Kim Pattison said:
I have a question on calibration. This was an issue Hubby and I had this morning. After calibrating with the 35 solution the RODI water was under 0. Is that possible? Did we get bad 35 calibration solution?
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Already answered, but I will add that this is the key reason I will never calibrate with RODI again.
Although my newer refractometer did not have that issue. It matched at both.
 
So I bought the Milwaukee salinity meter based on the good reviews here... it was easy to calibrate and tested the 1.025 test solution as 1.025. That was a good start.

The hydrometer was reading 1.0255 as usual on my reef, but the Milwaukee said my tank was only at 1.021! This was more consistent with the 2 older hydrometers I was recently given that made me suspect hydrometers aren't very accurate. I'm really mad at myself to think I trusted a $5 hydrometer for years, but also excited to find out how nice my corals will get once I increase the salinity and let them have some trace elements :)


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Like Kris (@Kmooresf) said, he uses a hydrometer to measure his salinity and has been for years. I tested his water with my refractometer when I picked up som frags from him (thank you by the way). It was pretty much dead on.
 
Before buying the Milwaukee, was thinking of getting veegee refractometer.

For Milwaukee, I keep roll of toilet paper and RODI bottle to double rinse between readings.
 
New hanna digital refractometer..
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I plan to switch 2gal/week of RO topoff water to saltwater. For a 40g tank, that's adding about 5% more salt per week, which should increase salinity about 1ppt per week. So it will take about 3 weeks to get from 1.021 to 1.024. That's probably slow enough to notice any changes in the corals.


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With a rise in salinity, all other parameters will increase in levels too. If you are dosing anything, I would take extra measurements to make sure you don't over dose.


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