Making the perfect saltwater

[quixand]

First off, hope everyone had a wonderful turkey induced sleep coma yesterday.

Making the perfect saltwater for your tank. Tips, secrets etc. Discuss. Thought it would be a fun day after Thanksgiving topic.

[roka64]

This is what I do.
Friday-add water, salt, ph, heater
Saturday-test water's salinity, add salt/water, if needed
Sunday-remove old water from tank, clean equimpent, add new SW.

[quixand]

Do you follow the mix instructions? Or do you find a certain amount of salt to a gallon is best?

Also, as a side note, I'm doing a QT for my Ich ridden fish as per another post. I cannot find a refractometer, would a glass hydrometer be acurate enough to measure SG? I've been using a swing arm type up until now, but then realized I had a glass hydrometer in the closet from my beer brewing days.

[melosu58]

I pretty well do what Scott does.Refractometer is best. Smith and Foster has them for around 50.00 including shipping. If you are going to make your own SW then it`s best to have one IMO.

[roka64]

I agree, I bought the refracto from the drs site, for around $42.
I never really went with the instructions for mixing water. I figured since I am on well water it might mix differently, so I just measure the salinity....by now, I have a general idea of how much salt to add.

[Kurt_Nelson]

Originally Posted by quixand

I cannot find a refractometer, would a glass hydrometer be acurate enough to measure SG? I've been using a swing arm type up until now, but then realized I had a glass hydrometer in the closet from my beer brewing days.

I've got one of those too, but bought a refractometer anyways. You can't beat the accuracy, plus some of them are temperature compensating. With a refractometer, you can easily see a variation in SG of .001 - if your eyes are good, half of that. Tough to do that with the bobbing glass hydrometer and trying to be consistent with where to read the miniscus. If you do go with the glass hydrometer, don't forget to adjust for the temperature of your water.

[quixand]

Ok..... I've never heard of adjusting for the temp of the water. Can you elaborate? Usually the water I put into the tank once mixed is close to the ambient temp of the tank. +/- a couple degrees.

[roka64]

It's best to match as many parameters in your pre mixing so when you add it to your main, there is no extra stress.

[Kurt_Nelson]

Originally Posted by quixand

Ok..... I've never heard of adjusting for the temp of the water. Can you elaborate? Usually the water I put into the tank once mixed is close to the ambient temp of the tank. +/- a couple degrees.

Oh... sorry, I wasn't clear there.

What I meant to say was that if you use a glass bulb hydrometer, remember that those readings you get from the scale inside the bulb are usually calibrated for a certain temperature. For the one I used for homebrewing, the scale inside the bulb reads correct if the liquid you're measuring is 60 degrees. If you're measuring 77 degree liquid, then I'd have to remember to add .002 to whatever reading I got. When you bought your hydrometer, it should've come with some type of temperature correction chart.

Spring for a refractometer, or put it on your Christmas list! I can't begin to tell you how happy I am that I started out with one. Two drops of water on the thing, flip down the lid, stare into a light and voila... you've got your reading. It makes it sooooooooo easy to take a quick reading.

[quixand]

Oh I completely agree with you on the refractometer.

My LFS was selling them for $90 bucks!!!! Crazy!!!

I'll probably end up picking one up on ebay.