in the first few months of having fish in my tank, i have had to do many, many water changes, to control ammonia levels. in doing so, i lost track of how much salt i had added, how much water had been siphoned, and have been worried that my salinity was either too high or too low.

i got this test unit, followed directions, and it read no salt. i added as per directions, and still it reads zero. so i added still more salt. it reads now, but my confusion is, do i follow the ppt scale, or the specific gravity scale? and is this tester accurate?

i know someone knows. please help.

never mind. i found results and answers somewhere else.

Mike,
I would be interested to hear what you found regarding how to read the salinity (specific gravity) meter. I'm having similar problems with the Ammonia levels in my 37G tank and I'm starting to worry about the amount of salt I've been adding.

TIA!
Kyle

what i found out is, to make mine read between 1.004 and 1.000 on the specific gravity scale, and under 6 on ppt.

Thanks Fantailfan.
K--

i also wondered the same THANKS goldfishfancier for all your sharing of info!!!!! i've learned alot here at koko's

oops sorry that thank to fantailfan

The specific gravity meter is meant to test saltwater so it wont detect the small amounts in fresh water like we use. Aquarium Pharmaceuticals does have a great low-range salt test kit. Its made for ponds but would work for aquariums too. You should be able to find it at a pet store in the pond section. Its in a green box.

Just to avoid trying to continually track salt content in several tanks, we bought an electronic salt meter (very small, hand held, battery operated). They are a little pricey (about $70 as I recall) - ours is from Koi Vet.

Nevertheless, it measures down to 1/100th of a percent - instantly. We generally maintain about a 0.03% to 0.06% salinity level in all of our tanks and this tool simply eliminated the guess work.

There are a lot of electronic (portable) laboratory devices that can be used to measure all of the elements of water chemistry - most of them are much Much MUCH more expensive than the salinity meter that I have.

I have thought about getting a PH meter but the test strips for PH are simply too cheap, so far, to push me over the edge.

do ya think the ones for salt water tank is good enough? i have one that starts at 1.000 but still has room to go down with no marks. i tryed it . all my tank seem to be at 1.000 but one is slighty lower.