whats brand of water tests are the best

[duke62]

:biggrinpa im just wondering which brand is the most accurate. i use aquarium pharmaceuticals master tester

 

[scarf_ace1981]

everyone swears by the saliferts

 

[Deanos]

I found Aquarium Pharmaceuticals test kits to be fine for testing for ammonia & nitrites. Once your tank has cycled with the use of live rock, there will be little use for those tests.

 

[crox99]

Go with Salifert

 

[duke62]

going once ,going twice,sold to salifert.thanks guys

 

[jhale]

salifert is good, but not for everything.
I found the Po4 kit to be almost useless.

 

[Henrye]

Salifert is pretty much the standard to use. Getting into something with higher accuracy will be a big jump in price (like Salifert is cheap:irked: ).

Hanna now has a photometric readers for phosphate and nitrate (is the nitrate only for FW or can you use it for SW, but I remember reading just a fragment about that, but I'm now drawing a blank). These photometers are very accurate, but expensive, and you need a separate unit for each parameter being tested. I'm not sure why they can't make one piece of hardware with interchangeable reagents. then I might spend the money. But, as far as "standard" liquid test kits, anything "better" than Salifert, such as LaMotte (good for PO4) or Hach, and you're looking at a serious investment.

BTW, I find water test kits for pH not terribly accurate. It's hard to follow you pH though a daily cycle, so a pH probe/monitor is, IMHO, a must, especially with a Ca reactor, and, while I may get yelled at, a Kalk reactor or even a drip. ORP probes are also nice to have, but far from a necessity if you're not injecting ozone. PinPoint now offers probes for Ca, and nitrates, but I've heard (don't you love rumors) that they require frequent calibration to provide accurate results.

Welcome back to chemistry class :banghead:

Henry

 

[duke62]

VERY SCIENTIFIC HENRY I HAD TO GET A DICTIONARY JUST TO UNDERSTAND SOME OF THE WORDS

 

[Wes]

i like salifert...im not a fan of the seachem tests..

 

[DallasNYC]

So is there a phosphate test kit worth getting? Or do they all give bad results in comparison to a probe?

 

[lfsmarineguy]

La Motte is actually the best test kits by quality of reagents used. Salifert is one of the better ones if you don't want to drop a few hundred on tests. I am buying a colorimeter for my business and will be doing water tests with computer read outs. I think the colorimeter is accurate down to .01 of a ppm. It takes a zero read of tank water without reagents and auto adjusts for any discoloration that may be present before doing the tests. I can't wait to play with it. Also has over 100 different tests it can run with different ways of reading each parameter.

 

[DallasNYC]

Thanks marineGuy, I will check out the laMotte kits.

 

[loismustdie]

Think about what you need. Lamotte are really good kits. I would get their nitrate kit if you feel you need that much accuracy. You don't need Lamotte to test for nitrite and ammonia. Any low budget kit will do. Hach is another high cost option. Even their PO4 kit is pretty good.
Salifert are crap IMHO. Very unreliable and test results vary from kit to kit. I was happy with Seachem in the past, so I may go back to them for Ca, Mg and alk.
If you've got the money to spend on Lamotte, I would consider a Hanna meter for phosphate. The unit is expensive up front, but in the long run, you would spend more on Salifert kits. Very accurate. I consider it one of my best equipment purchases. 9 times out of 10, tank issues are more due to PO4 rather than nitrates. I feel it would be in everyones best intrest to have the best possible kit to test for phosphates.
I believe Zeo-vit is the only one who makes a reasonably priced Potassium kit.
Here's what I test for and what I use:
NO3: seachem (happy with it, no need to change)
PO4: Hanna (love it)
Ca: salifert, (going back to Seachem)
Mg: salifert (going back to Seachem)
Alk: salifert (going back to Seachem)
K: Zeo-vit (don't really like the kit, but reasonably priced and serves it's purpose)

 

[loismustdie]

LFS: what colorimeter are you talking about? Most multi test meters I've seen mostly test stuff we really don't need (especially once you are done cycling) and they really don't justify the cost with what you can test.


Dallas, one last thing. Get yourself a monitor for pH. Even better, you can get something along the lines of an Aqua Controller which will give you constant readings of you pH, temp and ORP.

 

[lfsmarineguy]

The colorimeter LaMotte makes. Can give several read outs for each test just need to buy the reagents individually. For a service company it's great for the customers who want to see exactly where their tank is at plus we were going to test water for anyone who wants to for a fee. It's the same colorimeter used commercially it's a hand held that stores the data and can do a full computer upload.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

For the most part people who contract out service on their tank don't care what is in there so long as it looks nice.

 

[duke62]

thanks for all the feed back.by the way what is the prices on the lamotte

 

[loismustdie]

ammonia, nitrite and nitrate would cost around $60 for each kit.
Phosphate is around $75
alkalinity $30
Calcium $40
I would figure each kit to do around 60 to 75 tests

 

[lfsmarineguy]

I think the lamotte tests do a lot fewer tests per kit than most other kits, but might be wrong. The colorimeter just in equipment is about $1k and the reagents are extra and do about 15 tests depending per bottle. Actually, a lot of the reef customers do worry about their parameters even if they don't want to take care of the tank themselves. We have several customers who know reef tanks but are too busy to maintain theirs on a regular basis. But like I said it's not just for the service customers. If anyone wants to send enough water it could be tested for any parameters they wanted. Not worth it just for service clients. Although it is a toy for me lol.