Holy hydrometer v.s. Refractomteter batman!!!!!

[leon1972]

My hydrometer says my salinity is 1.022 , my refractometer says its 1.016!!!!!
SO GLAD i bought the refractometer finally!!!!!

 

[Washburn82]

did you calibrate it first>? i love mine too :)

 

[leon1972]

Yup. i calibrate it to 0 with regular old RO water and it came with a free bottle of calibration liquid. Got it off of Bulkreefsupply.com.

I LOVE THAT SITE. hahahaha

 

[FishyReef]

Yikes!! When you start to raise the salinity in your tank, don't do it all at once! You should really only raise it by about .001 per day. Glad you discovered the difference!

 

[leon1972]

yeah, right? lol. Well, im doing ten percent water changes daily right now because i used to use tap water. got a diatom craze and now doing 10 gal water changes daily.

 

[hachadwick]

Yikes!! When you start to raise the salinity in your tank, don't do it all at once! You should really only raise it by about .001 per day. Glad you discovered the difference!

I have a question: For initial setup, is it ok to raise the salt level to the desired level all at once? I am going to start the cycle right after adding water without any fish so it should be ok to just add all the salt that is needed, right? Sorry, but I'm pretty new to this:)

 

[BL1]

You should have the salt water filled in the tank before you even put the rocks in (don't fill the tank all the way to the top though, you have to account for the displacement of the rocks). You should never add the unmixed salt directly to the tank, it should be pre-mixed before adding.

 

[hachadwick]

My hydrometer says my salinity is 1.022 , my refractometer says its 1.016!!!!!
SO GLAD i bought the refractometer finally!!!!!

Very good, thank you. So forgive my ignorance, but how to you know the refractometer is more accurate? Is it more of a fail safe tool?
I am pilot and when we fly, we always trust the "wiskey compass" to calibrate the electronic gauges. It always works, nothing fancy:)

 

[little_fish]

This is why you dont want to trust hydrometers:

Same tank water, two really different readings