¿¿¿what hydrometer do you guys rock...???

by **gumbii** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 8:33 pm

my LFS gave me an instant ocean hydrometer, and it sucked... it had a crack in it, and would never give me accurate readings...

i took it back to him with a sample of my water, and he told me i was at 1.023 using his refractometer... he took it back and gave me a deep six from coralife... i like coralife products, but it tells me that my water is at 1.020... i don't get it... should i trust it... i just finished "seasoning" the needle with salt water...

i also read on the petsmart website the reviews that the deep six got... one guy said it was inaccurate and gave really low readings...

so what do you guys use...??? what do you recomend...¿¿¿

and i don't feel like being "baller" and getting me a refractometer...

by **snowboss** » Sun Jun 15, 2008 11:28 pm

unfortunatley the refractometer is going to be the most accurate, my instant ocean reads high....so i keep my water at 1.024 -025 and it is actually 1.022 which is where i keep it - -the tank is pretty established now so my water isn't swinging wildly so i just do what i do with a cheapo swing arm.......

Boss

by **tangerine** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:02 am

i use a cheapo plastic hydrometer too. what i do is i calibrate it every few months with my friendly LFS's refractomaeter.

a reading of 1.02 on my hydrometer is actually 1.025.

by **gumbii** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 1:43 am

hmm... i think i'm going to do that at my LFS... i'll take my hydrometer and test thier water with thier refractometer and my plastic hydrometer... see what the difference is and mark it down or something...

sigh... but if i start having problems i'm going to end up a refractometer... i've been reading about those cheapo ones on ebay and on fostersmith.com... nothing but good feedback for they...

by **schigara** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 2:47 am

I was using a Deep Six until I got a cheapo refractometer.

by **gumbii** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:07 am

how did you deal with the inacurate readings schigara...??

by **angus4481** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:44 am

gumbii, have you rinced the hell out of it?
refragmentors should be slowly broke in from what ive heard, i have an instant ocean hydrometer i trust, i have tested it with a few different refragmentors and its usualy the same. i just asked my lfs guy and he said to dip it in ur tank a few times and see if it comes up with different readings each time, and rince it off with cold water each time.... hope this helps... im gonna buy one in a few weeks hopefully.

by **gumbii** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:49 am

the instant ocean one had a crack so it wouldn't hold water... and it gave me some rediculous readings... like either way WAY too high, or WAY too low...

the deep six is constant... no matter how many times i rinse, or use it at a time... so i think it's an okay hydrometer... but i know the reading's aren't accurate... i need to calibrate it myself with a LFS refractometer and get used to it always beeing fail/aids...

by **schigara** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:51 am

I just compensated for it. I knew from comparing it to LFS's refracto that my hydro showed 1.022 when it was really 1.026.

by **schigara** » Mon Jun 16, 2008 3:56 am

Yeah, I found the Deep Six to be very consistent. When new, it was very prone to have air bubbles staying attached to the arm and had to tap it a few times to get the bubbles off. Once it was a year or so old and the arm was "seasoned", the bubbles were no longer a problem.

My LFS started carrying the $50 cheapo refractometers and he said that he had been using one for quite a while and it was just as good as his $150 fancy shmancy refractometer so I picked one up.

¿¿¿what hydrometer do you guys rock...???

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