Reasons to Buy a Refractometer

Yesterday, I topped off my tank, forgot to turn it off and added way too much water. I'ev done it many times before so I didn't panic. In fact all I did was turn off the top off, and drained some of the water back out of the sump. Figured I'd deal with it today. My fish have probably gotten use to these fluctuations before. I generally keep my salinity between 1.024 and 1.025. When I forget, it'll drop down to about 1.21 or 1.22....I went to buy a refractometer today, they didn't have the one I wanted, so I just picked up a new hydrometer.

I've read alot of threads about choosing a refractometer over a hydrometer. Here's the proof. This is before a water change. The new unit is reading 1.026. Old unit 1.023...

Using that information, my salinity was probably at roughly 1.030 before I forgot to turn off the top off water...

Yeah,no kidding.....they are all crap.....i had a glass floater that was .002 ,but still. not good enough when your doing hypo...

I used one for the first month I had my tank until my refractometer came in, that whole month I was freaking out that my salinity might have been off.

I had a new hydrometer when I first got into the hobby.Didnt know it was off till I took a water sample to the LFS for a 2nd guess check.It was reading low by 5 full points.

When I first started the hobby, i was using my brother's 2 year old hydrometer. I had switched eventually to a refractometer...I did find that my hydrometer was actually on spot. Just got lucky I guess. But I would go w/ my refractometer over my hydro any day.

I bought the cheapest Refractometer I could find on the web and regretted it. I can hardly read the thing. The one from Dr Foster and Smith is good.