Test Kits

[Dez]

Now I've been out of the hobby for a few years. I used to use Hagen test kits for PH, alkalinity, calcium, nitrates etc....I'm preparing to do a JL order for my new tank, and will be needing test kits. What is this craziness of super expensive test kits? Does it really make that much of a difference? I could buy a lot with $269 (looked at the price of Elos test kits). What is the difference between all these test kits? Thanks.

Des

[whatcaneyedo]

How did you miss this thread?

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?threadid=53003

[Myka]

Now I've been out of the hobby for a few years. I used to use Hagen test kits for PH, alkalinity, calcium, nitrates etc....I'm preparing to do a JL order for my new tank, and will be needing test kits. What is this craziness of super expensive test kits? Does it really make that much of a difference? I could buy a lot with $269 (looked at the price of Elos test kits). What is the difference between all these test kits? Thanks.

Des

Imo, not all need to be high quality kits, but some I would definitely not skimp out on. Plus, many people buy way more than they need. What I like to do is buy a the cheap (but ok) API kits for ammonia and nitrite, then Salifert for the parameters that need more accuracy; nitrate, calcium, alkalinity, and magnesium. I prefer Salifert for alkalinity over Elos, but I haven't tried Elos calcium or magnesium.

I don't buy a test kit for pH because there does not exist a hobby grade color matching kit that is accurate enough to bother. pH pens or monitors are much more accurate, but the probes seem to only last a year or two tops, so they are pricey. Since both pH and phosphate require little testing (because pH is rarely an issue, and phosphate readings from the water column are inaccurate) I don't buy kits for either, and if I really need to know I will take a sample to my LFS. Often the phosphate level in the water column is so low that a Salifert or Elos kit will not detect it very well, so the use of a D-D Merck kit is required, and that's an $80 kit that has a two year expiry (I believe it's two year).

Want accuracy? Buy Hach kits and a colorimeter. $$$ :D

[StirCrazy]

Want accuracy? Buy Hach kits and a colorimeter. $$$ :D

how much are thoes?

Steve

[e46er]

your left kidney

[Myka]

Hach kits i'm talking about are awesome because they have a continuous gradient color wheel, plus the way you read it uses a sample of your water too to compensate for any color in the water itself kind of like the D-D Merck phosphate kit does, but better. Hach kits are all over $100, but some of them test for more than one parameter like the Nitrite/Nitrate kit, and are good for about 100 tests.

Hach also offer test strip kits, drop count titrator kits, digital drop count titrators, and color cube matching kits. These are all cheaper than the color wheel kits, but I'm not sure if they are any more accurate than Salifert or Elos, however they are still quite a bit pricier than Salifert and Elos. Maybe someone else knows their accuracy in comparison?

The Hach colorimeters run about $400. You have to buy one for each parameter, but the $400 includes the test kits which are good for about 100 tests.

Hach kits are laboratory grade, and usually used for environmental testing. Some kits read slightly different forms of each parameter than what we're used to or different units of measure. They have an Iron kit that is likely much more accurate than the notoriously inaccurate ones that offered in the reef industry.

An interesting note is that Hach offers a cyanide color wheel test kit, although I'm not sure that you would be able to detect cyanide in the bag water of a fish that was collected using cyanide. I would be very interested to find out though!

At the end of the day, even the best hobby grade test kits like Salifert and Elos are horribly inaccurate when compared to laboratory grade testing. D-D Merck and LaMotte's are just the beginning of accuracy in the hobby grade test kits.

[BlueAbyss]

I agree with what Myka said above, all hobbyist test kit results should be taken with a grain of salt...

Maybe two, in the case of my freshwater API test kit. Every time I do the ammonia test, it comes back around the same color (about .25 by my eyes and a few other opinions). There is 0 nitrite. Whether this is because I actually have ammonia (I did find a dead fish this morning and was testing yesterday, but that doesn't explain the other 2 readings I've gotten over the past week that were the same color) or the test is inaccurate is hard to say. I like to think it's inaccurate, but I'll be running a few tests tommorrow to find out.

I'm afraid to think I might have a problem with the saltwater kit I bought at the same time... Meh, they were a featured product at J & L, so I got a deal on them anyhow if they turn out to be garbage.

[Canadian]

And save more money by not wasting it on a useless nitrite test kit.

From Randy Holmes-Farley at http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php

Nitrite

Aquarists' concerns about nitrite are usually imported from the freshwater hobby. Nitrite is far less toxic in seawater than in freshwater. Fish are typically able to survive in seawater with more than 100 ppm nitrite!17 Until future experiments show substantial nitrite toxicity to reef aquarium inhabitants, nitrite is not an important parameter for reef aquarists to monitor. Tracking nitrite in a new reef aquarium can nevertheless be instructive by showing the biochemical processes that are taking place. In most cases, I do not recommend that aquarists bother to measure nitrite in established aquaria.