salt levels 1.021 1.034 1.039 or 1.049?

hi

i was at my LFS today to buy myself a regal tang and i had my water tested while i was there when they tested my salt it first came up with 1.049 so he recalibrated there refractometer and it said 1.039 so he used there other one which said 1.034 when i got home i calibrated my one with fresh RO water and tested it and 1.021 the only diffrence is when they calibrated theres at the LFS they just took water out of there live plant tanks which were next to the didplay tanks could this be the reason why it had such eratic reading and what one do i believe

 

Take a sample of your water into the lfs and have them test it against your results, again, check to see if you have calibrated it properly and maybe take it round a friends house if you have one with a tank, just to compare....

 

yes, normal fish tank water isnt pure at all

 

yea ill do that there closed now so ill have to take it up tomorrow, but i dont have any friends with marine tanks so ill just have to wait the fish look fine so i think its prob my reading the the correct one but ill check just to make doubly sure ive had salt problems before which i dont want to go through again lol

 

Yes, you have to use either pure RO water or a calibrating fluid to calibrate a refractometer.
But, if your salinity is .021, I would start doing some top-offs with salt until you get that number up to a normal range.

 

what would you recormend to be the normal range i was told anything between 1.020 to 1.025?

 

Is this a reef or fish only?
Normal range would be 1.023-1.027. Some go higher. I wouldn't go any lower than 1.023.

 

fish only at the moment but i would like to get some corals at some point but i only got into the hobby just before chrismas which is why ive asked some pretty dumb questions lol

 

Hey, the only dumb question is the one not asked!
Don't raise it too quickly, as it's not real dangerous, but I would aim for a .023-.025 salinity level. Just start topping of with mixed saltwater instead of fresh, and recheck the level daily till you hit your target.

 

ok kl ill aim for about .024 then that way im in the middle ill try and rase it over the next week cheers for the help k+