please help, just tried

[SammyDee]

HUH??? How can water be <1.000?

If I remember correctly you or a mod told me that..... Yall chimed in when I was going thru the process of beginning BW and yall said if I took my hydrometer and measured the SG of my tap water gauranteed it would be less than 1.000 thats y I should raise it to 1.000 then 1.002. I learned that from here. And it makes perfect sense try it. hydrometers although not marked below 1.000 will still read below that. PS my hydrometer was brand new. I use two different ones for accuracy. one old, one new.

[Pufferpunk]

Nope, you are mistaken. The SG of FW is 1.000. Can't get any lower than that.

[Nick]

I think temperature changes the density of water enough to off the reading by a tiny bit, so you could have a decent hydrometer and pure water, but still get an off reading if your temperature is far enough off the temp it was calibrated for.

[jus85411]

if you have a hydrometer that reads below 1.000, wouldnt the needle just fall down to the lowest reading point anyway? doesnt the salt in the water keep the needle afloat at certain levels?

[Pufferpunk]

If a hydrometer reads below 1.000, it is flawed. That's what's so great about refractometers, you can calibrate it. Like being able to adjust your scale to 0 before you weigh yourself on it.