docscorals
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Dec 13, 2025
- Messages
- 592
- Reaction score
- 552
- Location
- Madison
- What state or country do you live in
- Alabama
So I use Hanna Checkers for alkalinity, nitrates, and phosphates. I started using them about 8 months ago when I started having too many tanks to test (I know, what a problem!). I loved the ease and how precise they were.
However, I noticed lately a lot of quality issues in their reagents with nitrate and phosphate. I am EXTREMELY careful and check to ensure I get the packets as empty as possible. I know there is some room for error, but I have seen wet reagents in every other packet with a batch, I have had consecutive packets give me a zero reading and the next packet read that I have nitrates or phosphates, and today I had two cone rice packets give me drastically different readings (one with nitrates of 24 and one with nitrates of 9).
As do alkalinity, I use it biweekly to check and see if I have drift in my Trident ACM. This last week, it gave a reading almost 3 points lower than my ACM. So, I pulled out my salifert kit and tested with it, and it was with 0.2 of the ACM.
Thankfully, I always keep salifert kits around to cross check odd readings. It looks like I will be using them for testing until I hear back from Hanna.
I share this not as a complaint, but as a heads up. If you use Hanna, keep an eye on eye on our results and maybe cross check periodically with another company. I know many of us do anyways, but I also know Hanna is a popular tester
However, I noticed lately a lot of quality issues in their reagents with nitrate and phosphate. I am EXTREMELY careful and check to ensure I get the packets as empty as possible. I know there is some room for error, but I have seen wet reagents in every other packet with a batch, I have had consecutive packets give me a zero reading and the next packet read that I have nitrates or phosphates, and today I had two cone rice packets give me drastically different readings (one with nitrates of 24 and one with nitrates of 9).
As do alkalinity, I use it biweekly to check and see if I have drift in my Trident ACM. This last week, it gave a reading almost 3 points lower than my ACM. So, I pulled out my salifert kit and tested with it, and it was with 0.2 of the ACM.
Thankfully, I always keep salifert kits around to cross check odd readings. It looks like I will be using them for testing until I hear back from Hanna.
I share this not as a complaint, but as a heads up. If you use Hanna, keep an eye on eye on our results and maybe cross check periodically with another company. I know many of us do anyways, but I also know Hanna is a popular tester
