Are my levels “good”?

[Kapachuka3]

Salifert nitrate test?
Its divide by 10 if you look through the side to match the color. If you match the color from the top there's no divide by 10

Oh ok hold on, ill test again and look through top.

 

[Kapachuka3]

Oh ok hold on, ill test again and look through top.

Yeah your right its at 100, dang, why is fish keeping so hard, i thought i would be able to tell if nitrates were high if cyano and other algae was growing, but there is none in my tank.

 

[Reefbuds]

Ouch man you have any prime on hand? You need to proceed with a water change like now

 

[Kapachuka3]

Ouch man you have any prime on hand? You need to proceed with a water change like now

Its so strange because i just did a water change like 3 days ago and all of my inverts seem to be doing fine.

 

[Reefbuds]

You said this tank has been up 3-5 years?

 

[Kapachuka3]

You said this tank has been up 3-5 years?

Yeah

 

[anthonygf]

Yeah your right its at 100, dang, why is fish keeping so hard, i thought i would be able to tell if nitrates were high if cyano and other algae was growing, but there is none in my tank.

Like I said I used Salifert Mag for some time before getting the Hanna, I wanted a more precise measurement with numbers than a color between 25-50, 50-100. I use Salifert for Calcium still and have Hanna for backup, Salifert for alk and Hanna for backup and Salifert for potassium, no backup. I like Salifert and Hanna, I tried most test kits and whittled it down to these two for my favorites

 

[anthonygf]

Ok thank you. I don’t mean to be ignorant but would i be fine just putting like 3 total drops into the tank in order to somewhat lower the phos levels. My clownfish has been acting weird and breathing heavy and i would like to relieve him a little.

With such a small tank I would do a 50 or 60% water change.

 

[anthonygf]

Salifert nitrate test?
Its divide by 10 if you look through the side to match the color. If you match the color from the top there's no divide by 10

You beat me to it. I also got a little confused with this test kit at first.

 

[Kapachuka3]

Im most likely going to do a water change tomorrow and vaccum the heck outa my sand and hopefully that will fix alot of things.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Ouch man you have any prime on hand? You need to proceed with a water change like now

For what purpose? There's no reason at all to believe the wild claims by Seachem that Prime does anything to nitrate. They fully admit they never tested it and do not know how that would work anyway. But what the heck, some users(s) thought it was useful, so let's claim it in advertising!!!

 

[DanyL]

Like I said I used Salifert Mag for some time before getting the Hanna, I wanted a more precise measurement with numbers than a color between 25-50, 50-100. I use Salifert for Calcium still and have Hanna for backup, Salifert for alk and Hanna for backup and Salifert for potassium, no backup. I like Salifert and Hanna, I tried most test kits and whittled it down to these two for my favorites

Hanna checkers are only advised where higher resolution matters, for example their Phosphates ULR checker is required when you try to differentiate between 0.01 to 0.05. Pretty much all other checkers are more of a "nice to have" kind of thing, but also come with more variables that can go wrong and influence the results, thus making regular test kits better.

However, in case of OP - not only he'll need a higher range checker to be able to measure it which will become redundant later on, it also doesn't really have any advantage over a regular test kits either.

 

[Reefbuds]

For what purpose? There's no reason at all to believe the wild claims by Seachem that Prime does anything to nitrate. They fully admit they never tested it and do not know how that would work anyway. But what the heck, some users(s) thought it was useful, so let's claim it in advertising!!!

So your saying Prime does not bind and detoxify nitrates as claimed?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

So your saying Prime does not bind and detoxify nitrates as claimed?

Most definitely I am making that claim, yes.

I discuss extensively my detailed rationale here:

Reefers may over-rely on personal experience to accept or reject truth

Really? You didn't know from somewhere that corals need light? calcium? Alkalinity? sources of nutrients? It may sound ridiculous, but some of those were hard won bits of information determined by the failures of early reefers. I'm sorry. You are correct. I was looking beyond the basics when...

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