Coralife Deep Six Hydrometer

[mommafish]

What are ya'lls opinions on this hydrometer? I can use it five times in a row and get a different reading every time. Am I using it wrong or is this thing crap? It's all they sell around here to test your salinity.

 

[drakken]

Be sure there are no air bubbles on the arm or the reading will be off. Fill it slowly then tap it a few times.

 

[escape2thewater]

my aquarium systems seatest does the same thing, I have to bump it several times to get all the bubbles off the needle. Also I check in the fuge and sump to make sure I got an accurate reading. HTH
KH

 

[stillfrodo]

If you can afford the best way to go IMO is a good refractometer. I used the swing arm hydrometer for about 3 days then threw it out the window. Was to inaccurate. Plus the tiniest air bubble would throw the arm off. This was one of the first things that I invested in. Plus mine is temperature calibrated so i don't have to fuddle and guess if my tank temp is low or high. A few drops of water on the glass prizm close the lid hold the instrument up to the light and you have a pretty accurate reading. One thing I found out while researching refractometers is they are used also to measure the ripeness of fruit, alcohol content in wine, the brine in pickles was pretty interesting. Anyway as you can see by my posts I have limited experience in this hobby but IMO a good refractometer is the way to go.

 

[mommafish]

Thanks for the help, thumping the thing is giving more consistent results - I don't see any air bubbles, but when I thump it the needle does go to the same place every time so it is probably very small bubbles. I'll keep trying it and if it gets too frustrating I'll look into the refractometer.

 

[madd catt]

Well you could use a glass hydrometer {floating kind} but they do break and they have better accuracy.

 

[aarone]

I use a seatest only because they did not have any deep six' in stock when i went. I think somewhere on the package it states that you need to leave saltwater in it for a full 24 hours, so you can get good accurate readings. (deep six)

 

[chuckularone]

I use a deep six right now. Thumping was the key for me too. I learned that when I filled it with distilled water out of curiosity when I first got it. It was at about 1.022 until I gave it a whack.
I used to have a refractometer that I used when I was making homebrew, but it has long since dissapeared. Now that was another expensive hobby!

 

[sinner's girl]

82 degrees... you want your float hydrometer to read 1.025.... at 80... 1.024.... at 78 you want 1.023
Thanks kip, I was thinking about that last night and was going to ask about temp and sg. Our tank's temp keeps changing since it's summer and when I go to check sg I didn't know where is should be with the temp. so thank again.