Water Test Kits

Noahs ark6 · Apr 12, 2011

Hi

I have been using liquid test kits to test my water, but im thinking of changing to test strips as they look more simple and easier to use. Does anyone use Test strips and if so are they good?

thnks :good:

amy1994 · Apr 12, 2011

I use tetra test 6 in 1 test strips, they are very good, have the chart on the side so it is very easy to use

interpet123 · Apr 12, 2011

i second that, lol

Little_Nemo · Apr 12, 2011

Test strips provide inaccurate water results - the API Liquid Master Test Kit is fully recommended on here!

MontyJ · Apr 12, 2011

We just bought our first tank Saturday. My wife picked up the test strips and we used them at first. I got to thinking about how inaccurate those things are for our pool. We use liquid tests for the pool, so I figured they must be available for aquariums as well. I went back to the pet store and by happy circumstance bought the API Liquid Master Test Kit. I decided to do a test. Here are the results:

API Liquid Master:
pH: 7.8
Ammonia: .5ppm
Nitrite: .25ppm
Nitrate: 0.0ppm

Sentry AQ Mardel 5 in 1 test strips
pH: 5.5
Ammonia: .2ppm
Nitrite: 0.0ppm
Nitrate: .2ppm

No, I did not transpose the numbers for the nitrite and nitrate results from the test strips. 0.0 Nitrite, 0.2ppm Nitrate.

Those are big differences. I used my pool test kit to test the pH since it's the only thing I can test in the tank. It gave me a pH of 7.6. Being that the numbers from the API kit are in line with what I believe I should expect from reading on this site, I trust it much more than the test strips.

Proxo · Apr 12, 2011

Little_Nemo said:
Test strips provide inaccurate water results - the API Liquid Master Test Kit is fully recommended on here!

Bignose · Apr 12, 2011

To be completely fair, any measurement device cheap enough to mass produce commercially is going to have fairly significant error margins. +-5% at least, and I would not be surprised if it were higher than +- 10%. Test strip, liquid test, tablet test, etc. All of them are going to have errors in manufacturing, and user error is going to be very significant.

That said, I concur that in general, liquid tests seem to be more reliable.