Rate Hanna checkers from most important to ehhh maybe.

[Krw]

I agree with Bruce60 if you are going to do quarantine tank for fish you do need the Hanna Copper tester also.

 

[sorloe]

Hannah alkalinity
Hannah ULR phosphate
Nyos nitrate
Rest is saliferts

 

[DrEggroll]

I have salifert for my mg ca alk phos. My question is about the color change. If they start as pink and the final is supposed to be blue. I get this initial color change to a purplish hue. Do I stop there? Or give it one more drop to get to the blue final color

 

[FastandCurious]

I have salifert for my mg ca alk phos. My question is about the color change. If they start as pink and the final is supposed to be blue. I get this initial color change to a purplish hue. Do I stop there? Or give it one more drop to get to the blue final color

I have wondered this myself. It's the same thing with the API test. The API Calcium test is actually the only one out of all of theirs that I find not to be complete garbage. Bc it does get me pretty close to a ballpark idea of where my levels are but I always did wonder do I stop when the color changes to purple or blue? I thought it was just an API thing buy maybe not. Bc in the directions it's reads that the end point will be blue but in the diagram they show the endpoint color being purple. So idk. Just another reason why I love API so much ;Rage

 

[fryman]

IMHO, Hanna is king for Phosphorus (ULR). It's great, nothing else comes close.

But I never got onboard the other hanna checkers. Just don't see the need. I know people love the alk tester but I've tried several diff test kits and while I don't know which is most accurate, they all seem easy to use and have similar variability. Alk has like a football field of range that works so really just need it for trending and pretty much any test kit can do that. All of them are quick & easy so why not just get the cheapest? Salifert is under $0.16 per test. Hanna is $0.36 AFTER spending $50 for the tester. Of course I say that and yet my next build has a trident...so will see if my opinion changes. I do think convenience has value but salifert seems equally easy compared to hanna.

Many kits are fine for nitrate, but I value quick and easy above precision. If my nitrate is 5 or even 10 ppm, I'm ok. Zero is a problem, 20 is a problem. API does this (and also a lot of others) . I'm just not sure why I need the precision to know if it's actually 0.5 instead of 0 ppm, or 4.0 instead of 5 ppm. Of course accuracy is also key but I've checked API against other test kits and the results align. The hanna nitrate checker takes too long and is too complex for me.

Calcium I don't have experience with hanna.

 

[paul barker]

I have all Hanna checks I started out with Salifert and still think they made a good test kit than I started buying redsea I like redsea pro no3@pp4 tests kit the rest are in the garbage I use Hanna for cal and kh and now po4 I still use my Salifert in I don't like what I see on Hanna BRS HAS videos on all the test kits

 

[nereefpat]

but I always did wonder do I stop when the color changes to purple or blue? I thought it was just an API thing buy maybe not. Bc in the directions it's reads that the end point will be blue but in the diagram they show the endpoint color being purple.

Every titration test is like that. You need to titrate to the end color. Typically, when you start to see the change (purple in this case), you add one more drop to get you there.

With API, 1 drop = 20ppm Ca. So it gets +/- 20ppm, which is plenty good enough for Ca with a hobbyist test kit. You can even double the sample volume, and that gets you to 10ppm increments.

Hope that helps.

 

[Bnutz]

1. Hanna alk
2. Hanna ULR Phosphate
3. Hanna salinity and temp pen.
4. Hanna calcium
5. Aquaforest mag
6. Nylos nitrate
7. Hanna copper if necessary

 

[tundraguy1106]

Just got an ICP test of my parameters in my tank water. I’m disappointed in Hanna. I currently have their Alk, calcium and ULR phosphate test kits. Alk is pretty solid. Calcium had me dosed up into the 600 range. The results were also all over the place not to mention all the tedious steps. Now the phosphate kit which I thought was reliable. I’ve been getting constant results of .04 ppm however my SPS corals were dying and I got a Dino bloom. After receiving my results, ICP showed my phosphate at .01. This was after I also tested the same water right before sending out my samples. My result was .08!!!! .07 difference.

I’ve literally been starving my tank of nutrients because I was relying on the Hanna ULR phosphate test kit. I’m heading out today to grab a salifert! Salifert kits have all been solid for me.

 

[nereefpat]

Just got an ICP test of my parameters in my tank water. I’m disappointed in Hanna. I currently have their Alk, calcium and ULR phosphate test kits. Alk is pretty solid. Calcium had me dosed up into the 600 range. The results were also all over the place not to mention all the tedious steps. Now the phosphate kit which I thought was reliable. I’ve been getting constant results of .04 ppm however my SPS corals were dying and I got a Dino bloom. After receiving my results, ICP showed my phosphate at .01. This was after I also tested the same water right before sending out my samples. My result was .08!!!! .07 difference.

I’ve literally been starving my tank of nutrients because I was relying on the Hanna ULR phosphate test kit. I’m heading out today to grab a salifert! Salifert kits have all been solid for me.

Not so fast. You are assuming that a Falcon tube of water shipped across the world at room temperature and tested a week later will give you accurate phosphorous results. I would actually trust the Hanna here more.

 

[Reef.]

If you are going to make management decisions about your phosphate levels, then the ULR Hanna checkers are the only hobby test kits that read phosphate in a low enough range to be useful.

I wouldn't bother using the checkers for anything else, because other kits are cheaper and work easier and arguably better than the Hanna ones.

If you mean they are the only “reliable” test for PO4 that read the low range, that is one thing but they are not the only only test kits that can read as low as the Hanna, whether the Hanna or the other kits are more accurate than the other is up for argument.

 

[nereefpat]

If you mean they are the only “reliable” test for PO4 that read the low range, that is one thing but they are not the only only test kits that can read as low as the Hanna, whether the Hanna or the other kits are more accurate than the other is up for argument.

What other hobbyist phosphate kit will detect parts per billion phosphorous (0.003 parts per million phosphate).

I've seen it a thousand times where someone thinks they have zero phosphate only to find out that it's just undetectable on their kit. They run the test on a Hanna ULR and see they have 0.03 ppm.

 

[Mooneyhan22]

I use the Alkalinity, phosphorus and nitrate checkers. Honestly they were in my opinion the best investment I made. Nothing like getting a true number. The nitrate one is labor intensive as others have mentioned but no worse than Red Sea or salifert and it gives you an actual number. I use salifert for calcium and Red Sea for magnesium and the coral colors test (although I rarely actually test because they are a pain)

 

[Reef.]

What other hobbyist phosphate kit will detect parts per billion phosphorous (0.003 parts per million phosphate).

I've seen it a thousand times where someone thinks they have zero phosphate only to find out that it's just undetectable on their kit. They run the test on a Hanna ULR and see they have 0.03 ppm.

You said phosphate not phosphorus, so to say Hanna is the only test kit to read the low range of PO4 is just wrong, most don’t measure in phosphorus but in phosphate, the phosphorus reading has to be converted into phosphate anyway to get a PO4 reading, they still cover the same range, whether they are as accurate is a different matter, some say the Hanna is not reliable either, but to say the Hanna is the only test kit to measure low range phosphate is not correct and misleading.
In your opinion the Hanna may be more reliable but that is not what you said.

 

[nereefpat]

You said phosphate not phosphorus, so to say Hanna is the only test kit to read the low range of PO4 is just wrong, most don’t measure in phosphorus but in phosphate, the phosphorus reading has to be converted into phosphate anyway to get a PO4 reading, they still cover the same range, whether they are as accurate is a different matter, some say the Hanna is not reliable either, but to say the Hanna is the only test kit to measure low range phosphate is not correct and misleading.
In your opinion the Hanna may be more reliable but that is not what you said.

For our purposes, it's the same thing. You just have to convert it, and the conversion is easy. X 3 and move the decimal.

What other phosphate test kit will read in 0.003 ppm?

 

[Reef.]

For our purposes, it's the same thing. You just have to convert it, and the conversion is easy. X 3 and move the decimal.

What other phosphate test kit will read in 0.003 ppm?

Not sure if you are deliberately misunderstanding me or not, but you said Hanna was the only “Phosphate” test kit that read the low range, I pointed out that is incorrect, if you are now arguing that Hanna also has a “phosphorus” checker that can be converted to phosphate that reads lower than any other test kit then as said that is not what you said or what I was correcting but even on that point the Hanna phosphorus checker as you have said yourself “for our purposes” has only an accuracy of 0.03ppm anyway.

I felt it worth pointing out to anyone reading this thread that Hanna for the low range is not the only option out there as you stated, if you had said Hanna was the only test kit to read the low range of phosphorus than I would not have bothered posting, but reading phosphorus that low for our purposes is not meaningful especially when the accuracy is only 0.03ppm.

 

[paul barker]

I just use the phosphate LR and keep it in the .03 to.05 ppm range

 

[tundraguy1106]

Not so fast. You are assuming that a Falcon tube of water shipped across the world at room temperature and tested a week later will give you accurate phosphorous results. I would actually trust the Hanna here more.

Retested my water after receiving the result. .08 on my Hanna. Went to my LFS and purchased a salifert phosphate kit and it was .03. Take these results however you want. The fact that I had a Dino outbreak as well as my SPS dying leads me to believe the ICP test was accurate. If ICP isn’t reliable why do we send them water to test?

 

[Joekovar]

I use the dkh checker daily/every-other, the calcium checker weekly, the phosphate ulr when something seems off, and the nitrate when phosphate gives me an unexpected number.

I wish there were magnesium and iodine checkers.

The nitrite checker is so useless after an initial cycle on your first tank that I cut mine open with a dremel tool to see how they work.

 

[sam2110]

Retested my water after receiving the result. .08 on my Hanna. Went to my LFS and purchased a salifert phosphate kit and it was .03. Take these results however you want. The fact that I had a Dino outbreak as well as my SPS dying leads me to believe the ICP test was accurate. If ICP isn’t reliable why do we send them water to test?

I keep my tank at 0.03, no dinos and no SPS dying. There are threads from loads of people about ICP phosphate tests. Have a read of them and you will then understand why your icp result for phosphate is no good. Salifert phosphate test is not a reliable comparison. Buy your self a ULR phosphorus checker and try again. Also if you shake to hard you get bubbles in the sample and that will give you a slightly higher result.