High Tide Aquatics

Quick ICP head to head results

Darkxerox said:
It's the one @Thales and Ben recommend on Reef Beef. Honestly it's HEAVY, which leads me to believe why it's so expensive and doesn't drift like the cheapo ones (there's no dinky screw, it's a huge ring). I haven't had to adjust it at all since I bought it over a year ago. I still use the TM hydrometer for my water prep since I leave it in there while it's mixing as an estimate.

I called up the customer service with a question about the lid sticker and you can tell it's just one of their no-nonsense engineers with a phone by their desk.

You can buy direct like I did (if you don't like to buy from Amazon). https://www.veegee.com/collections/handheld-refractometer/products/handheld-salinity-refractometer
Click to expand...

Great thank you. Will buy this ASAP. I have not used a manual refractometer since my initial reefing days and I dreaded this device so much, but looks like there are some improvement with this one, i.e., magnified scale, and ATC, which is great.

The TM Hydrometer always needs a (often large) correction factor to get to 35 PSU, even if temp is measured separately and accounted for, which is annoying. The reason folks thought this is such an accurate device is Triton ICP often matches their hydrometer results. The only alternative is a rather expensive conductivity meter (800-1600), the one that Fauna uses is a 2k device. So 160 USD is a steal if it gets to a 35 PSU ICP validated result.

I recognize not everyone cares so much about hitting exactly 35 PSU, but I do consider this a foundational parameter, hence the focus.
 
Alexander1312 said:
Great thank you. Will buy this ASAP. I have not used a manual refractometer since my initial reefing days and I dreaded this device so much, but looks like there are some improvement with this one, i.e., magnified scale, and ATC, which is great.

The TM Hydrometer always needs a (often large) correction factor to get to 35 PSU, even if temp is measured separately and accounted for, which is annoying. The reason folks thought this is such an accurate device is Triton ICP often matches their hydrometer results. The only alternative is a rather expensive conductivity meter (800-1600), the one that Fauna uses is a 2k device. So 160 USD is a steal if it gets to a 35 PSU ICP validated result.

I recognize not everyone cares so much about hitting exactly 35 PSU, but I do consider this a foundational parameter, hence the focus.
Click to expand...
I was listening to one of the reefing podcasts recently. They had two persons on who do ICP consulting for Fauna Marin. Both of them said that the majority of cases they help on involve tanks where the salinity is off.

Most people in the hobby use cheap-o refractometers. Those are basically complete junk (or need to be calibrated with each use) and therefor many run there tanks at the wrong salinity. Most commonly their salinity is too low.
 
Slingfox said:
I was listening to one of the reefing podcasts recently. They had two persons on who do ICP consulting for Fauna Marin. Both of them said that the majority of cases they help on involve tanks where the salinity is off.

Most people in the hobby use cheap-o refractometers. Those are basically complete junk (or need to be calibrated with each use) and therefor many run there tanks at the wrong salinity. Most commonly their salinity is too low.
Click to expand...

Yes. Fauna receives approx 800-900 ICPs daily, from all around the globe, and the US seems to be, unfortunately, leading the salinity discrepancies, specifically re large deviations.
 
Darkxerox said:
It's the one @Thales and Ben recommend on Reef Beef. Honestly it's HEAVY, which leads me to believe why it's so expensive and doesn't drift like the cheapo ones (there's no dinky screw, it's a huge ring). I haven't had to adjust it at all since I bought it over a year ago. I still use the TM hydrometer for my water prep since I leave it in there while it's mixing as an estimate.

I called up the customer service with a question about the lid sticker and you can tell it's just one of their no-nonsense engineers with a phone by their desk.

You can buy direct like I did (if you don't like to buy from Amazon). https://www.veegee.com/collections/handheld-refractometer/products/handheld-salinity-refractometer
Click to expand...

Curious what your question was about the lid sticker, as I might have the same.
 
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