Does anyone here have moments of Reef Stupidity?

[troublemaker]

I have been fighting parameters for months watching thousands of dollars of livestock die. I really thought I had lost my touch, no matter what I did, coral died. I couldn't keep Alk, Ca, or Mag stable no matter what I did. I happened to get a new bottle of Calibration fluid for my refractometer and found out that my Salinity has been at 1.029 for an undetermined amount of time. When I checked wth the remaining old solution it showed a solid 1.026, even though the new solution was showing it currently at 1.029. I guess holding salinity that high for months has severe negative effects.

Needless to say, I will never trust a single point of confirmation on anything. I have multiple brands of all test kits, but only had one bottle of Calibration solution. My Apex has now been equipped with a conductivity probe that will at least monitor any swings that move beyond the window that I consider safe.

Sometimes I feel like I'm the only one that does stupid crap like this.

 

[carpetreef75]

stop by the LFS once a month for frozen and have them test water parameters to verify mine i check daily are pretty close
Bryan

 

[#theMatrix]

Brb...checking my salinity with a regular old salinity thing that goes in the tank

 

[jrpark22000]

yes, we all have failures and stupid mistakes, if nothing else for trusting somethign we shouldn't or don't know better than to trust.

This is my backup salinity tool. It's cheap, the measurements are very granular and its accurate. I use a precision thermometer to find the offset. Much better than any calibration fluid I've every used. Once I know the salinity using this, then calibrate my other easier to use salinity tester to the same value.
http://www.tropic-marin.com/meerwasseranalytik/de-araeometer-en-hydrometer-fr-areometre/?lang=en

 

[Sawdonkey]

All of the time....I've overflowed my skimmer cup twice in the last month, and just last Friday, i overflowed my ATO container......while I was sitting in the same room! My sump area is a water sealed trough, but it got over two inches deep. I got two coughs up in the tv I was watching and forgot I was filling the tank.

 

[skjohn98]

�� Found out that I didn't glue one of my drain pipe fittings on my 125 about 2 years after I started the tank, it never leaked

 

[Kevin Says]

Once I had a sump professionally made to fit my stand. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it through the door. My wife and kids died laughing watching me struggle and made fun of me for months...

 

[xj_matt]

I once decided that I was going to get in to this hobby called reefing, and my life and wallet, and credit cards never looked the same lol

 

[jrwoltman]

Years ago, I forgot to change the filter floss on my 75. It got clogged, and overflowed the sump. Pump kept pumping and flooded the living room an 1/2" deep (tile, thank God!) Pump burned out. Water got into the power strip and shorted out everything.

That is just one of the stupid things that I have done in my 5+ on/off years in this maddening hobby.

 

[Bommie]

I still use the Hydrometer. I keep an extra one on hand, every now and then I use it to double check to see if my main one is still reading properly. I had my fare share of mistakes as well.

Sent from my 6045O using Tapatalk

 

[IHaveCrabs]

I have two floating bulb hydrometer and they are both very close to each other. On a whim I bought a Milwaukee Digital refractometer that requires recalibration each time it is used. I found that my salinity was 1.030 and I slowly dropped it over the last 2 weeks back down to 1.026-1.027.

It happens all the time.

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[xj_matt]

Can't you always recalibrate you're refractometer by using Rodi water as well witch will be set at 0 no matter what just a though

 

[#theMatrix]

Can't you always recalibrate you're refractometer by using Rodi water as well witch will be set at 0 no matter what just a though

This was said to be in accurate though some use it as a guide. Your doing it almost backwords from my understanding. The salinity calibration works by being at sea lvl and your supposed to set your refractometer to that so when you use mix water youll be at zero?



So when you use the solution you zero it out thus making the mark where your supposed to go positive