Do the Hanna salinity calibration packets actually expire?

[cba191]

I have a bunch that came with my setup and was just wondering.

 

[JonoH]

Curious about this also, i would have about 20-30 of these left still!

Cant see how they would.

 

[KStatefan]

Hanna says 5 years.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

They can only expire if water has evaporated out of them., I don’t think that is likely.

However, I also do not have high confidence in them. I personally would not trust them unless I had compared them to a diy standard made with a decent scale. I have seen enough indication from folks who have used them and also a diy to be suspicious that there may be a systemic problem with them.

 

[FernBluffReef]

I’ve seen wide variations in the Hanna salinity calibration fluid. I got my checker and packs from my LFS and the checker was always way off. I got some new packs online and they were closer for a while - so in my experience they are not consistent- whether that is due to age or due to tolerance I can’t say for sure.

What I do anymore is I calibrate my Hanna checker with freshly mixed saltwater that measures 1.026 at 77 degrees using a tropic-marine hydrometer and just for kicks occasionally double-check with my instant ocean swing arm hydrometer which is always spot on. When I do that, I find I get extremely consistent results with the Hanna checker and rarely have to recalibrate while when using the Hanna calibration solutions I could not trust the results

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’ve seen wide variations in the Hanna salinity calibration fluid. I got my checker and packs from my LFS and the checker was always way off. I got some new packs online and they were closer for a while - so in my experience they are not consistent- whether that is due to age or due to tolerance I can’t say for sure.

What I do anymore is I calibrate my Hanna checker with freshly mixed saltwater that measures 1.026 at 77 degrees using a tropic-marine hydrometer and just for kicks occasionally double-check with my instant ocean swing arm hydrometer which is always spot on. When I do that, I find I get extremely consistent results with the Hanna checker and rarely have to recalibrate while when using the Hanna calibration solutions I could not trust the results

I wonder how many of the complaints about the Hanna checker not giving good results were bad standards, which as you note, is easy to solve in any of several ways.