See email discussion below between myself and Lou Bell from American Marine. Start reading from the bottom up. Your thoughts? Sorry for the long post, but it was the only way I could get the whole story on the site accurately without having to re-type it all. Believe what you wish Luke but ask some other people and get other unbiased opinions.....Take care... Lou Lou, This might be the reason Aqua Craft is in the marine product business and not in the English language text book writing/publication business. I personally would not fault a company simply because they have typos on their website. It says nothing to me about the quality, or in this case, the accuracy of their product. After some further review online, I was reading that your product may be more fit for calibrating your own testing products and not necessarily another company's refractometers? Could this be true and if so, could this explain some of the deviation in like products? Aqua Craft claims to be the only company out there making test fluids specifically designed to calibrate refractometers. All others seem to be making it to calibrate their own proprietary electronic test products. Regards, Luke Barnett -----Original Message----- From: Lou Dell [mailto:loudell@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2012 3:15 PM To: Luke Barnett Subject: PINPOINT Salinity Calibration Fluid BTW, I looked at the Aqua Craft website and saw their version of salinity calibration fluid. While I have never seen (or heard) of that fluid before there are about 5-6 pretty obvious typos in their write up of the product. Heck...if they can't spell calibrate; can they make an accurate fluid? Lou Shelf life is about 2-3 years in a closed bottle. Open bottle depends on your ability to keep out evaporation and contamination. I really can't comment on what is better for your tank. always your decision to make....Lou Lou, That was not quite the outcome I was hoping for, but at least now we know your product is accurate. I know salinity consistency is always more important than exact salinity accuracy, but I was so far off (over 5 ppt), it just didn't make sense. I also ordered a bottle of the Aqua Craft calibration fluid and will let you know where that product compares when it arrives next week. I may just need to split the difference between products and use that new baseline for a permanent tank salinity from here forward. I know perfect is always the best, but tank health-wise, is it more acceptable to have high salinity or low salinity? Which is safer for tank inhabitants, in general terms? Also, what is the suggested shelf life of your product? Regards, LUKE BARNETT | CERTIFIED TEGG REPRESENTATIVE .............................................................................................. Koontz Electric Company, Inc. OUR POWER IS IN OUR PEOPLE 1231 Highway 9, Morrilton, AR 72110 501.215.7511| Mobile 501.354.2580 | Fax www.koontzelectric.com ________________________________________ From: Lou Dell [loudell@gmail.com] Sent: Saturday, December 01, 2012 9:52 AM To: Luke Barnett Subject: Re: Calibration Fluid Batch Incorrect Luke, I just tested the bottle that you sent to me and it is dead on at 35.0 ppt or 1.026 SG. There was no evaporation or contamination of the product. I will put your bottle and a new bottle in the mail. You should receive it next week....Lou Dell/American Marine Inc. On 11/29/2012 5:48 PM, Luke Barnett wrote: > Lou, > > I was curious to know if you received the fluid yet? Unfortunately, I have experienced my first casualty in my tank today. I have had a large Ultra Blue Maxima Clam for over a year now and today he croaked. After using your product 4 weeks ago, I began readjusting my salinity slowly. Apparently, the readings I was getting after using your product to recalibrate my refractometer were not quite accurate and my inhabitants are starting to parish. > > Please let me know what kind of readings you are getting from that bottle so I can determine where my salinity needs to go. Thank you very much for your help and I hope I don't see any more casualties. > > Regards, > > LUKE BARNETT | CERTIFIED TEGG REPRESENTATIVE > .............................................................................................. > > Koontz Electric Company, Inc. > OUR POWER IS IN OUR PEOPLE > > 1231 Highway 9, Morrilton, AR 72110 > 501.215.7511| Mobile > 501.354.2580 | Fax > www.koontzelectric.com > > > ________________________________________ > From: Lou Dell [loudell@gmail.com] > Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:57 AM > To: Luke Barnett > Subject: Re: Calibration Fluid Batch Incorrect > > Thanks Luke. I will let you know....Lou Dell/AMI > > > On 11/22/2012 10:46 AM, Luke Barnett wrote: >> Lou, >> >> Thanks for your response. I understand that measurement values from another like product may be off, but 5 ppt off? That seems a bit extreme, right? >> >> I also understand using RO/DI water to calibrate a refractometer is not accurate, but when tested against distilled water, my RO/DI water had the same test values as the distilled, zero. That tells me that my RO/DI unit is functioning properly and the filters are still within their useful threshold. Using a calibration fluid versus distilled water is always better because the test fluid is closer to the actual preferred test range making my end results more accurate, but when readings come out 5 ppt different, that raises a red flag and leads me to believe something other than product variation is wrong. >> >> I understand that a +/- 1 to 3 ppt may occur when comparing like products to each other, but 5 ppt? That can be the difference between a healthy tank and a crashed tank. >> >> I will get this in the mail right away. It probably doesn't make a whole lot of sense to mail a 5 dollar bottle of salt water back and forth in the mail, but because I am a hobbyist and in the interest of protecting your product and other hobbyists, I would be happy to get this back to you asap. If a batch of your product is indeed "bad," I am sure you and many others would like to know asap before they notice ill effects in their systems. >> >> Let me know what you think and thank you for your help. >> >> Regards, >> >> Luke Barnett >> 6 W Sapphire Lane >> Greenbrier, AR 72058 >> 501-215-7511 mobile >> www.koontzelectric.com<http://www.koontzelectric.com/> >> >> >> <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Koontz-Electric-Company-Inc/1519852948 >> 28521> >> ________________________________ >> From: Lou Dell [loudell@gmail.com] >> Sent: Thursday, November 22, 2012 9:20 AM >> To: Luke Barnett >> Subject: Re: Calibration Fluid Batch Incorrect >> >> Please send the bottle in question back to me at: >> American Marine Inc, >> 54 Danbury Rd Suite 172 >> Ridgefield, CT 06877 >> >> I will evaluate it and get it back to you. >> Also you should note that the measurement value from another like >> product may be off and calibrating a refractometer with RO/DI is just >> plain wrong.....Lou Dell/AMI >> >> >> >> On 11/21/2012 10:50 PM, Luke Barnett wrote: >> I just recently purchased a bottle of your Pinpont Salinity Monitor Calibration Fluid from Dr. Foster & Smith to calibrate my refractometer and noticed that the bottle I received, tested 3 to 5 ppt off from another like product that I have from another manufacturer. Both products are supposed to read 35.0 ppt but yours seems to be high. >> >> I even recalibrated to 0 by using distilled water. After that, I used your product and it was reading 39 to 40 ppt. >> >> Now I know you’re not supposed to use RO/DI water to calibrate refractometers, but I did, just to see how close the distilled water tested to the RO/DI water and they were both at 0. Even after calibrating with RO/DI and testing your product, your product tested at 39 to 40 ppt. >> >> Something is off here. Can you shed any light on this problem? Can you send me another (lab tested) bottle so I can compare results with my current bottle or do I have to ship this bottle back to you first? >> >> I have a very large salt water system with some very sensitive and expensive creatures in there and was hoping to rely on your product as a base line standard, but that does not seem to be the case. Please let me know what I can do. >> >> >> Regards, >> >> Luke Barnett
