Salifert Test Kits $uck!

[JRodrig692]

Will, woke up early this week to find a bleached out small echinata that I had and thought that was strange. Well then my ORA Bonsai begins to bleach out. Fear runs through me thinking its worms. Pull the colony, check, dip, flush, magnifying glass, nothing.

Go down to find I ran out of CO2, don't know when so I decide to check dkh. Salifert kit shows me 7, ok, not bad. Bleaching continues, and I test again, 7. So I decide to break out the Tropic Marin kit and it reads 5! So I borrow a friends kit and reads 5 also. So now I know the problem!

Second time I had issues with Salifert. Once with Calcium and now Dkh. Needless to say, I am finished with that companies test kits.

Anyone else have problems, I know of one other person with issues also.

Well I am off to frag up my colony.

 

[mikem]

Sorry to hear about your loses Joe. Glad you figured it out before there was any more damage.

 

[Phyl]

Sorry about the colony. I've heard about certain batches of bad Alk tests from Salifert, maybe you can find info on the bad batch numbers? I've always used them and haven't had a problem with them (yet).

 

[mynd]

The test kits I use are as follows:

Red Sea - Silica, Magnesium
Aquarium Pharmaceutical, Inc. ( API ) - Ammonia, Nitrate, PH
Tetra Test - KH ( carbonate hardness )
Nutrafin - Nitrate, Phosphate, Calcium

Those are what I think to be the best kits to use. Pretty Accurate and easy to read and understand.

 

[blange3]

Sorry to hear about your problems Joe.

Here is a link to the Salifert Forum thread discussing this issue. There is a pretty good page showing the color changepoint that corresponds to the reading.

Salifert Alk Link

I have an older kit that is still OK. I think they will get their act together. They are still my preferred kit.

What a wild and crazy reefer! Salifert test kits, VHO lights, sand and macroalgae in my tanks, Coralife skimmer.... Call me an extreme reefer! ;D

( Hope that give you a slight grin Joe!) Hang in there!

 

[chase33]

Sorry for your problems. Hope all turns out well. Also thanks for the info. I use Salifert for ALK and didn't know there was a problem. Now I'll monitor a little closer.

 

[Carlo]

I'm not a fan of Salifert test kits especially the alk kit. Way to many problems over the years with that kit. They are medium grade with high end price tags.

For real good accuracy to cost here is what I use:
LaMotte for Alkalinity & Calcium (or use Salifert strontium test kit for calcium)
Hanna for Phosphate
API for pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate
Salifert for Magnesium, Strontium, Boron, Copper

You could also use the API KH test for alk.

I don't have much faith in Salifert Calcium or alk test. They seem to change batch to batch and aren't that accurate to begin with. Heck if you do a calcium test and then do a Strontium test with Salifert the numbers can be 50 ppm off. The first part of the strontium test is a calcium test. The strontium calcium test does seem to be more accurate BTW then the calcium test, go figure.

Instant Ocean test kits are made by Hach so you can't go wrong with them either but you don't see them very often. Hach, Elos & LaMotte are lab grade so if you want the best go with them...

Pinpoint has nice meters for pH, Nitrate and Calcium and are very accurate. Hannah makes a very good Phosphate meter.

Red Sea are medium grade kits and except for the alk test (hard to read) is better IMHO then Salifert and at least consistant (very important). They are available everywhere also.

Carlo

 

[boozeman]

I have heard many good things about Elos test kits.
btw, I'm sure they would give us a group buy discount, if interested lemme know and I can talk to the owner about it.

 

[Carlo]

Actually for normal use I'd say go with the API kH/Alk test instead of the LaMotte. It's a lot cheaper and the API works very well. BTW API uses Hach reagents so now you know why they are consistent. I also happen to think the API bottles are the best. It's easy to control the drops and they don't just drip out without a little squeezing of the bottle.

I just picked up an API Calcium test kit (2 reagents) and used it for the first time. It was fast an easy to use. It's half the price of Salifert. I got a reading of 420 from the API and 460 from Salifert. Did a fresh calibration of my Pinpoint Calcium meter and tested with that and got 423. Seems like the Salifert Calcium test reads high while the API was very close. I then did a test using my Salifert Strontium test kit (first part of test) and got about 420 for calcium (same as API).

I'm becoming less of a Salifert fan every day. Noting how far off the alk and calcium numbers are on easy tests makes me wonder how accurate some of the harder tests are. I'm now starting to question the Mg test. I get around 1400 on salifert and about 1200 on a Red Sea kit. Looks like I'll pick up a LaMotte or Elos Mg test kit and see what it gets reads.

Carlo

 

[JRodrig692]

Bill - thanks for the read and thanks to all for the words of confidence.

Well, the recession continued so I broke off the tops and trashed the colony before it destroyed itself completely.

Told by others that once that it begins, it is unstoppable, keeping fingers crossed that frags will make it.