The Puffer Forum

Pufferpunk wrote: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.

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

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.

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?

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.