Why do I now have to use the factor 120 instead 100?
In recent years we had observed that our magnesium test with the factor 100 was showing too little magnesium. On expeditions in the “original marine water,” however, we were still able to measure the the correct values, and this indicated that the low measurements were due to the artificially prepared marine water.
After that we carried out extensive tests with the various salt mixtures available on the market from various suppliers. The difference to original marine water came from the recently used magnesium salts and trace elements in the sea salt mixture, which caused a deviation of about 20-30%.
After our tests we modified the instructions in order to increase the multiplication factor from 100 to 120 in order to adapt it to the sea salt mixtures currently on sale.
As a result we can once again carry out precise measurements on artificial sea salts by using factor 120. With natural marine water we still use factor 100.