Calibration

[musho3210]

Refracotmeters say to use distilled water to calibrate, could i use DI water?

[Fishieness]

in short: yes
lol

[musho3210]

in long? Do they say distilled because you need pure water?

[musho3210]

doesnt matter, i calibrated it (technically i didnt since it came ready calibrated)

I love this refractometer, it comes with a case and everything :D:D:D

[jojo22]

Which one ya get???? Link please. Also is it color scale or number?? I have heard that some of them are by color and I need one that reads in numbers since I'm partialy color blind.

[musho3210]

Milwaukee model 100 with ATC

http://www.aquacave.com/detail.aspx?ID=616

What do you mean by number and color coded? There are numbers on both sides, SG on the left and salinity on the right, theres this blue bar that moves up and down on the scale with the numbers and where the blue bar lines up is what the level is.

Its a good product, nice design, comes with carrying case, calibration is easy but you need the screw they provide.

[Fishieness]

looks very similar to the one i ahve.
yes, they say distilled because you need pure water. if you used strait tap water, or even bad RO water, the ppm of solvents would be pretty high and your rating woudl be WAY off. distilled is pretty much as pure as you are going to get, but you wouldnt notice a difference if you used fresh DI. They do make some calibration solutions that have a known salinity. and these are fine too. all you need is osmethign with a known salinity. pure water just has one of 0. so there is no error in the production, it costs the least, and it is garenteed every time.

[musho3210]

ok, i used RO water not DI, i get mixed up since my lfs sells DI by my grocery store sells RO.... I put the drops on the prism, looked in the eye piece and it was already at a perfect zero so i left it.