My Test Kit Results Vs Triton ICP Results

[Andrew Schubert]

For what its worth, I thought I'd share a comparison of my test kit result vs those given back to me by Triton.

Notes:
- I took my sample test kits within 1 hour of the same time I collected my water that was sent into Triton.
- I shipped out my Triton sample on 1/14/2020 and received the results back on 1/21/2020.

1. Test #1 Potassium
- Salifert Potassium Test Kit = 410
- Triton ICP = 393

2. Test #2 Magnessium
- AquaForest Magnessium Test Kit = 1550
- Triton ICP = 1432

3. Test #3 Calcium
- Red Sea Calcium Test Kit = 500
- Triton ICP = 491

4. Test #4 Phosphates
- Hanna Checker Phosphorus ULR = .12
- Triton ICP = .12

5. Test #5 Strontium
- Salifert Strontium = 4
- Triton ICP = 11

Conclusions:

The only results I was not happy with what the Salifert Strontium test. I had a feeling this test was gonna be way off, and sure enough it was. I started trying to dose Strontium about a year back and gave up because I couldn't figure it out. At the time I ended up dosing an entire container in about a week, and yet my Salifert test still read 0. So I figured the tests were no good, and didn't want to keep trying to figure it out and make more damage then it was worth.

Well, when I received my last ICP test results it said I had 7.72, where my Salifert test still showed 0. Since then, I dosed 1ml of strontium daily for the past month. As you can see my levels went all the way up to 11, despite Salifert still only at 4. Conclusion, seems like anything above 0 with the Salifert test is actually too high.

I'm fairly happy with the results of the remaining tests, and feel I can confidently rely on them for my future readings.

 

[JimWelsh]

I've done a fair amount of fiddling around with the Salifert Sr kit, as well as trying to develop a Sr method of my own, and I just want to say that teasing out Sr from the Mg and Ca with a titration method is a really challenging thing. My hat's off to Habib @ Salifert for developing the kit, but there are lots of opportunities for error in it. I'm not saying you're necessarily doing anything in particular wrong, just that it's a really challenging test to attempt in the first place.