Need some help with Salinity!

[dpfriedman]

I constantly keep messing up with Salinity. I have a Hanna Salinity checker, Its been very nice to use but lately its been giving me all kinds of crazy readings and I have no clue what I am doing wrong. 2 weeks ago it showed my Salinity was at 38 PPT, This is after I calibrated it with the fluid it came with. Okay this is no big deal and I lowered the levels with some RODI Water. 2 weeks later I am doing a water change (today) It read the Salinity was at 34.8 like it usually does. I did the water change, got it to 35 PPT and decided to recalibrate the checker as it has been a month. Now it is showing my Salinity in the tank is at 30 PPT. I dont know whats going on, any advice? I keep running into Salinity level problems which should be the easiest one to deal with and its just so disheartening.

The trick to calibrating the Hannah that I’ve found is that you need to gloat your calibration packet in your tank for about 5-10 mins to get temp equal so when you test your water it is near the same. Ever since I’ve done this is is near perfect. It will drift about .001 so when I read my Hannah it is .001 less than what it is. I’ve benchmarked it next to my refractometer that has been calibrated with AccuraSea.
Shoot for 1.025 so it’ll give you some wiggle room not to drift above 1.026 or below 1.024.