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Calibration solution & Changing salts


dwdenny

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Bare with me here lol. 
 

I originally calibrated by refractometer with Randy Holmes-Farleys refractometer DIY calibration solution. Went to recheck and it had some crap growing in it so I bought refractometer calibration solution. Well I was low so maybe I didn’t measure out the DIY precisely enough. So I was way high on salinity according to the solution. 

exact figures once calibrated to the Fritz 35ppt solution my tank was reading 41ppt (not sure how anything has survived) but could explain why zoas are not fully opening even though they were slowly acclimated and have been in there a month. 
 

Fast forward I ran out of Fritz RPM and haven’t seen the growth that I thought I would see and LFS stop carrying the small bags so went with Red Sea Blue bucket matches tank parameters that I currently have. So I have about 3.5 gallons mixing right now was planning on changing out 16oz every other day for a week or so then the following week do my normal 1 gallon water change. Would that be to fast of a change given my salinity is high and I will be bringing it down to normal levels. Any opinions advice. 

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Just rechecked tank and it’s not high but low not sure what I was looking at this morning. Sitting at 32ppt. So won’t be that big of a salinity change for to test the new water parameters as far and the big ones. 
pH

alk

Ca

Mg

Still going to take it slow but thinking maybe 24oz ever other day. 

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fenderchamp

I would double check the salinity with some other device, maybe take some water and the refractometer and your calibration fluid to the lfs and triangulate the whole mess with some of their water and some of their measuring devices as well.  I've been struggling with my hanna meter seeming to go out of calibration, so I got a hydrometer to double check things against.   I've been mixing water by dumping in a bucket and then adding salt until it's right according to my hanna meter and then double checking it with the hydrometer, but I think I'm going to start measuring the water and the salt, probably with a couple of scales, and then adjusting if necessary via the meters, because I'm fairly sick of how I've been doing it at this point.  

 

I can't really speak to changing x amount of water per day or whatever, but it seems to be the consensus that  slow changes are better than big ones, but I'm a noob so I have no real opinion.

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