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Best alkalinity test


Kingtriton92

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Can anyone recommend a good idiot proof alkalinity test kit?

I picked up an API kit from Upscale yesterday and was dismayed with the direction to add one drop at a time until it turns "bright yellow".  It turned yellow at 8 drops, brightish yellow at 9 drops and indisputably bright yellow at 10 drops.   So is my alkalinity 8, 9 or 10?  

Up until now I've been doing a five gallon water change every Saturday with tropic marin pro reef and everything seems to be doing fine and thriving.   

 

 

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27 minutes ago, pdxmonkeyboy said:

so basically the hannah was the most consistent and basically one of the better if not best option.   What good is accuracy if it is not consistent? 

Not to mention that you can literally check your alk in 1.5 minutes with the hannah checker. 

just my 2 cents

I've had consistent results with Salifert alkalinity test and believe most alkalinity tests are consistently precise, even though they may not be consistently accurate.

As long as there isn't aquarium swings, the corals fine. Maybe the aquarium is a 7 dKh and the test shows 9 dKh, but they don't care.

Note: Did not watch the video. 

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I never found it locally. I ordered from BRS. Each bottle of reagent lasts me 2-3 months. The only issue I have ever had with mine is on bottle of reagent tested about .5 dkh lower then any other bottle I have had but was consistently .5 lower the entire bottle. Just be mindful when you open a new bottle and dont freak out. I have started opening a new bottle just before the previous one runs out and test using both new and old bottle for a few tests. 

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The brs video showed that not all the tests yielded consistently precise results.  The hannah was the most precise.  

For those that don't know the difference between accuracy and precision the dart board is the classic example. A tight grouping of darts would be precise, even if they are not near the center of the board.  Accurate darts are near the center of the board but if they are not precise, then they would be clustered in a wider grouping. 

For alkalinity you are looking for consistency rather than a magic value, so precision is more important. 

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I use the Hanna tester as well, its simple and convenient testing is hard to beat and I do find that it is consistent. I'm not too worried about it as I'm not running to high or low Alk and I stay pretty consistent when I test. I was surprised about the Salifert tests though.

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I used Red Sea instead of Hannah for a long time until Hannah dropped the powdered reagent out of their alk checker.  Now I use the Hannah and honestly the consistency is superior over the color shift, even to someone like myself who is pretty consistent in reading it.  You can't argue with hard numbers over your "readings".  That said I do think the Hannah reads ~0.5dKH lower than the Red Sea kit.  Regardless of a little precision drift, if whatever number you pick is staying the same and you don't change kits it shouldn't ever be an issue. 

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