If you own a Hanna Alk checker I suggest buying these! I almost lowered my already low Alk! May have saved my tank!

[nano reef]

So I have been getting Crazy high alk readings from Fritz blue lately!

To make a long story short I had some of these but thought they were expired since I had them for years! I even put a post out and spoke with Randy Holmes Farley about lowering my alk!

Turns out my Hanna checker is giving me crazy false high readings! The guy from tech support was even floored that it was so off!

Do you self a favor before you make any drastic changes in alk and buy these first! Best 13 bucks every spent!

 

[shakacuz]

i bought one of these for each of my test kits. definitely does help make sure your readings are consistent

 

[Garf]

So I have been getting Crazy high alk readings from Fritz blue lately!

To make a long story short I had some of these but thought they were expired since I had them for years! I even put a post out and spoke with Randy Holmes Farley about lowering my alk!

Turns out my Hanna checker is giving me crazy false high readings! The guy from tech support was even floored that it was so off!

Do you self a favor before you make any drastic changes in alk and buy these first! Best 13 bucks every spent!

Lol. It is always odd when folks report high stuff in a salt mix. Glad you found the cause

 

[taricha]

This is the first thread I've ever seen where the optical absorbance was actually the issue.
As a general rule, the digital eyeball is almost never the problem with a weird reading. It's more like 70% "chemistry is hard" (chemical test error of some kind), and 30% "actual bad water parameters." I guess there's a 1% "digital eyeball failure"


(most people won't find that calibration with the color standard vials solve their issue. But I'm glad it resolved your issue.)

 

[elysics]

These only check the checker itself, they don't check whether your reagent is completely off. If you only use these, you still can't trust the results, reagents are bad way more often, that's why that employee was surprised.

Getting these is fine if you want to troubleshoot that, but rather than buying these for every test, why not buy a reference solution (artificial seawater with parameters printed on the bottle) and run actual tests on that.

That way you check the reagents too, not just the electronics

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I too am not much of a fan of these optics checkers. They are far short of checking if the test is working properly.

 

[nano reef]

These only check the checker itself, they don't check whether your reagent is completely off. If you only use these, you still can't trust the results, reagents are bad way more often, that's why that employee was surprised.

Getting these is fine if you want to troubleshoot that, but rather than buying these for every test, why not buy a reference solution (artificial seawater with parameters printed on the bottle) and run actual tests on that.

That way you check the reagents too, not just the electronics

I only bought one for alk. It was almost 4 years ago I think. I remember buying them from Hanna and not sure why. I must have been having problems with meter as well back then.

Saltwater aquarium has them very cheap though and I always have at least two different regents that arrived at different times both regents telling me the same thing. Plus took to my LFS and hers saying the same reading as well!

I also bought a ppm by mistake with solution and verified with that and converted until my new one arrives. To many things telling me its off and by over 1 dkh. Honestly I think I bought it like that and thats why I was getting such high readings from every batch and box of Fritz salt!

Pretty handy if you ask me but dont know about buying again now that you mentioned saltwater reference solution! If I could buy that cheap and checks all my testers that would be awesome.! Where do you buy this from? Never heard of it being sold?

 

[elysics]

I only bought one for alk. It was almost 4 years ago I think. I remember buying them from Hanna and not sure why. I must have been having problems with meter as well back then.

Saltwater aquarium has them very cheap though and I always have at least two different regents that arrived at different times both regents telling me the same thing. Plus took to my LFS and hers saying the same reading as well!

I also bought a ppm by mistake with solution and verified with that and converted until my new one arrives. To many things telling me its off and by over 1 dkh. Honestly I think I bought it like that and thats why I was getting such high readings from every batch and box of Fritz salt!

Pretty handy if you ask me but dont know about buying again now that you mentioned saltwater reference solution! If I could buy that cheap and checks all my testers that would be awesome.! Where do you buy this from? Never heard of it being sold?

i use DSR reference for ~10€, covers all tests i have. not sure if that's available in the US and for what price, fauna marin and probably many other big companies make them too

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

I bought a reference test for my PO4 ULR. What I do use it for all the time, is when I mess up the test and need to do a C1 reference again. IE; quick push instead of long..

 

[Doctorgori]

Alk testing has a high priority for me so I have triple redundancy in checking if something is amiss 2 Hanna’s , Trident plus reference solutions

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I bought a reference test for my PO4 ULR. What I do use it for all the time, is when I mess up the test and need to do a C1 reference again. IE; quick push instead of long..

What did you buy?

 

[TangerineSpeedo]

What did you buy?

Just the reference test for the actual meter itself. Comes with two curvettes. One filled with RODI or 35ppt reference (clear) and the other is a standard, in my case it is a .4. Like someone pointed out it only test if the meter is working at the proper calibration.

 

[One Reefing Boi]

So I have been getting Crazy high alk readings from Fritz blue lately!

To make a long story short I had some of these but thought they were expired since I had them for years! I even put a post out and spoke with Randy Holmes Farley about lowering my alk!

Turns out my Hanna checker is giving me crazy false high readings! The guy from tech support was even floored that it was so off!

Do you self a favor before you make any drastic changes in alk and buy these first! Best 13 bucks every spent!

What am I looking at? Some sort of calibration kit?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Just the reference test for the actual meter itself. Comes with two curvettes. One filled with RODI or 35ppt reference (clear) and the other is a standard, in my case it is a .4. Like someone pointed out it only test if the meter is working at the proper calibration.

Gotcha.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

What am I looking at? Some sort of calibration kit?

No, they are simply used to make sure the optics of the device are functioning properly.