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- Apr 7, 2017
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So I dropped my refractometer a few weeks back, recalibrated it(or so I thought), and went about my business. I usually check calibration pretty often but, you know, life gets in the way and it slipped out of my routine. Anyway, corals and nems start looking off, either polyps not extending or losing color, so I go to the usual and check all of my parameters. ALK 7.5, Calc 440, mag 1350, nitrate 2-5, nitrite and ammonia 0. Everything is typical for where I dose to so I check SG and the refractometer reads 1.030. There’s no way right? So I calibrate and get 1.022. Puzzled I recheck the calibration and got something completely different from when I calibrated it 3 minutes prior. So I try to get a consistent number and nothing is repeating from the calibration fluid, tank water, and mixing barrel. I check with a hydrometer and it says my mixing barrel is 1.027 and my display is 1.025. So I adjusted the mixing barrel to 1.025, and still didn’t feel confident in the readings. I then decided to wait and get a better option for testing and had a digital refractometer overnighted. When I tested my water, the display was at 1.027 and the mixing barrel at 1.029! Not what I wanted to see.
I’m slowly doing 5 gallon water changes every other day pulling out see water and putting in fresh water, 180 gallon total volume, to correct the issue.
Anyway, what does everyone use as a redundancy for checking SG or do we all just hope and pray that our chosen method is always correct?
I’m slowly doing 5 gallon water changes every other day pulling out see water and putting in fresh water, 180 gallon total volume, to correct the issue.
Anyway, what does everyone use as a redundancy for checking SG or do we all just hope and pray that our chosen method is always correct?
