test kit quality

[cjmagm1]

I am new here and have a few qusetions and i should also announce i am also a newbie to marine tanks. Have had one in the past but i am still new.

I recently set up my 75g with about 35#base rock and 20# of uncured live rock for my cycle well did all the test religously and and kept showing up with high nitrates even though ammonia and nitrites were barely visible. Checked my tap water and thought it had nitrates in it so i got a filtration unit still showed nitrates. The test kit was a tetra test kit. So i had an older marine enterprises kit and it showed nothing,well today i bought a hagen test kit and it as well shows nothing. Just wandering if anyone else has had a problem with the tetra test kit or are they usually a good kit. :?:

 

[Mikef1]

I always use salifert test kits as they are more accurate than other kits I have used.

 

[Anonymous]

SeaChem is not only accurate, but readily available in the U.S. However, what's being demonstrated here is a lack of understanding of the nitrification process. Do a search in our library, as well as a general Google search, and you'll learn why you will always end up with nitrate readings after the ammonia, then nitrite, have been oxidized. In other words, what's supposed to be happening IS happening.

 

[Anonymous]

I agree, SeaChem has some great testkits and affordable as well. The only thing I don't like about 'em is their amonia test, it sucks.

 

[AshS]

I've done a bit of analysis comparing some test kit results from water analysed using a lab grade spectrophotometer and to be honest I got some shocking results.... Some of the test kits (the tests were done blind by people who didn't know the concentrations of stuff they were testing for) gave results up to +/- 100% of the actual concentrations 8O. Having said this the Salifert nitrate tests came pretty close most of the time although their phosphate and nitrite kits were way way off.

 

[cjmagm1]

My tank is only about three weeks along in the cycle and i have yet to see noticable spike of any but the nitrates. But when i tried the three different nitrate tests, two of the three showed none as well. I dont think my tank is at that stage yet. It was only a question of test kit quality. Thank you all for your responses it is helpful and appreciated and yes i still have alot to learn and welcome any contradictions to my answers as i am very eager to learn the right way of things again thanks.

Craig

 

[Anonymous]

I've done a bit of analysis comparing some test kit results from water analysed using a lab grade spectrophotometer and to be honest I got some shocking results.... Some of the test kits (the tests were done blind by people who didn't know the concentrations of stuff they were testing for) gave results up to +/- 100% of the actual concentrations 8O. Having said this the Salifert nitrate tests came pretty close most of the time although their phosphate and nitrite kits were way way off.

Please give us more information! We're gluttons for this kind of thing, if you please.

 

[AshS]

Basically we were having a few phosphate problems in the coral systems at work but this was not being picked up by the test kits we were using. So we bought a spectrophotometer and got all the other aquarists to test several samples of water for different parameters using brand new test kits and compared their results to those obtained by using the spec. Naming no names :wink: we decided that in the case of ammonia and nitrite most test kits could only determine the presence or absence of the pollutants rather than the absolute concentrations (at low to mid range). Low range (@ 0.2ppm) phosphate analysis gave so much variance between individual test kits of the same brand that we got results varying from 0 to 0.50 for samples of water at 0.28ppm. Having said all this these were test kits commonly sold here in the UK, I wouldn't like to comment on kits in the US.......

 

[Anonymous]

Actually, AshS, if you could name names... lemme talk to the admin about this first, but I'd like to learn more about your results so we can mark this for archiving.

 

[Anonymous]

Hi AshS. As long as results were obtained objectively there is no problem with giving the full low down on the blow down.