Corals vs refractometer

[Winter-huntsman]

So I don't know if I should add more salt water to my tank or freshwater. My refractometer says my salt is low but when I added salt all my corals shrunk up. When I added fresh back in they started to come back. So I don't know if I should judge on my meter or my corals reaction. My meter says I'm at a salinity of 23.

 

[bribo12]

Recalibrate it. You're adding sw right not just straight salt to the tank?

 

[Winter-huntsman]

Yes, salt water. And I don't know how to recalibrate it. All I can do is hope that the tank is not to salty until I can work on it tommorow afternoon. I'll probably bring it to my lfs and see if they can calibrate it for me.

 

[Sniperhank]

Get ro/do water and rinse it off. The. Use it to calibrate.

 

[54seaweed]

this may sound like a odd question but it has been done,
have you done any water changes lately. I have even done this myself I forgot to mix in the salt to the ro/di to put back into tank ,

another thought do you have a hydrometer to compare readings of both .
you say you get a reading 1.023 that still is in the safe zone ,

just remember raise the salinity slowly when you do get to that point so you don't shock the fish or coral

 

[Winter-huntsman]

Ok. And my saltwater is already premixed at my lfs. I'll try the hydrometer as well. I think my issue was I used a lot of tap water to clean off my refractometer and even though I dried it my results kept showing my water was to fresh. When I get home I'm going to rinse it off with ro/di water and use my hydrometer. Hopefully it's not to salty to do any real damage, but I would have seen a reaction from the corals if it was.


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[cgthebeast]

Personally, I've seen my coral at their best at about .25, I've held it before at the .23 range but they just didn't extend that much

 

[Winter-huntsman]

Ok so I just checked everything. My hydrometer said I was at 1.023, my refractometer said 1.021. So I went a head and took water out and added salt in. I'm waiting a bit to let it all mix to see how everything is doing


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