chucklez
Active member
For periodic nitrate testing I tend to use API, for all else I use RS Pro. Pros: Fast and Simple. Cons: Color matching is purely conjecture, all depends on lighting and person reading. Anyways I have been using it for awhile. And according to the color matching I CANNOT get nitrates down under 20. Matter of fact it stays at 20. And I do Weekly 10-15% water changes. So I have a 5 month expired Red Sea Pro nitrate test kit. I do the diluted sample test, wait 9 minutes and match colors, According to that I am in the 4-5 range. ***?! So I run it again. Same result. Then I run API. Wife agrees it reads a 20. I have had this issue before where the two kits are different, but not his much. Usually CA reads 40 pts or so lower with API than RS. Alk has a +-2 pt difference.
Anyone else see major discrepancies between different brands of tests? I can live with a small difference but a the NO3 is just too big to look over. Almost tempted to do one of those send away tests to see where everything really is.
Anyone else see major discrepancies between different brands of tests? I can live with a small difference but a the NO3 is just too big to look over. Almost tempted to do one of those send away tests to see where everything really is.
