red sea algae control test kit 4 ppm max?

[turbotone]

whats going on everyone.. im new to this hobby and inherited a 75 gallon tank..i spent about $2500.00 so far smh. im in the process of learning everything i have to do and get in the habits of logging everything and doing weekly test.. my set up is in my profile so if that helps anyone in helping me i filled out my information to the best of my abilities thus far..

i just finished my one month cycle and at the end of it my nitrates were high according to my REDSEA algae test control kit at 4ppm. now i took my water to a pet shop and had him run some test on it and help me try to fiqure out how to lower my nitrates and he said that my nitrates werent that high...

my question is what do other test kits rate in between?

what are my nitrate levels suppose to be at?

what are low nitrate levels and what are high levels?

im doing a reef tank with soft corals please keep that in mind if that plays a role in different nitrate levels

red sea algae contol kit does it like this:
0.00ppm
0.25ppm
0.50ppm
0.75ppm
1ppm
2ppm
4ppm

 

[ryangrieder]

Well, to make it easy...

Ph you want 8.2- 8.4
Ammonia you want 0ppm
Nitrite you want 0ppm
Nitrate you want 0ppm. 0-15ppm is not horrible though, but 0ppm is key.
Calcium should be 400-500ppm
Magnesium should be at least 1250ppm. Some people run this high, and some people run it low
Alkalinity you want 8-12ppm
phosphate you want .01-.03ppm. But 0-.05 is not horrible. Usually people have it .02-.03...But lower is key even though it's almost impossible to get 0.

For your phosphates, 4ppm would be insanely high. You should get a Hanna Phos checker. Most color changing kits are really hard to read. Phos levels are critical for sps and some lps. You need to know exact measurements. Color changing charts won't cut it.

And to go from you saying...
0
0.25
0.50
Those are wayy to big of gaps. You want more of
0
.01-.05
More accurate and closer measurements

 

[turbotone]

thank you so much on this info... i feel lost with these test kits.. my nitrate and phosphate cant even find a color to match exactly so ive been adding the numbers of the two colors they're between and dividing them to get an average..smh

any recommendations for nitrate test?

 

[Boomer]

Turb

Read through this.


Reef Aquarium Water Parameters
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.htm

What Red Sea kits did you buy ? The new one are really nice, played with one 2 wks ago. Other than that try Salifert.