Refractometer questions

drakebuffie

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Zeroing my refractometer with tap well water. I get drastically different readings .004 at least depending on the temperature of the water I use.

I do have a water softner which uses salt but I dont know if that would be what makes the difference?

Anyone else out there ever see a difference depending on temp of water with their refractometer??
 
I always use distilled water and bring it to tank temperature to zero mine. Some may disagree, using 0 TDS RO/DI water will work at tank temp as well.
 
as mentioned above, its better to use distilled or rodi water, or , a bottle of calibration fluid costs about $4. I wouldnt trust the results using tap water to calibrate.
 
I would recommend getting some refractor calibration solution. It's cheap enough and you want to calibrate near to were you want the reading to be. Temp will affect the reading.
 
Zeroing my refractometer with tap well water. I get drastically different readings .004 at least depending on the temperature of the water I use.

I do have a water softner which uses salt but I dont know if that would be what makes the difference?

Anyone else out there ever see a difference depending on temp of water with their refractometer??
because its tap water. It will have some salts in it. Use RODI or at the very least distilled.
 

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