A sharing...from a newbie!

I have been quite happily mixing my SW and doing other such stuff using a swing arm type hydrometer. I wasn't happy with the 'non-performance' of some of my introduced livestock so bought another swing-arm to check against the first - it read 0.005 different! (higher).

'Checking' with a floating hydrometer gave a (recalibrated) measure in between! Eeeek!

Time to go down to our local SW shop and get them to test with their refractomter. It said my SW was 0.004 higher than what I was aiming for.

So over the last couple of days I have been gradually diluting my tank down aiming for a 'real' 1.024. (0.001 a day)

I am hoping it will stop the fishies blinking so much. :oops:

Another lesson for a newbie...don't believe anything...

The only safe way to measure Salinity is to buy a refractometer.

These are as accurate as anyone needs to go and are reliable.

Yup - agreed.

Do you know how many swing arms are getting used every day? I guess my conclusion would be that if we are going to 'rely' on a swing arm or similar get it benchmarked with something like a refractrometer and get it checked regularly (I'm making a case for how 'cheap' refractromters end up being aren't I?!!!?)

Salinity is a big fundamental to get wrong...and perhaps keep getting wrong...

hmm reef was selling one ?? 120$ i think

Saw one for sale think it was reefs on trade me for $70.Used but that dont matter.

all be sorted now

I bought one off of ebay.com, and it was $30 US$ + shipping, best way to measure salinity !!!