Salifert ammonia accuracy

[mpatterson42]

Yesterday I started cycling a new saltwater tank, I added Fritz TurboStart and 10ml of Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride (it said 5ml for each 25 gallon to get to 2ppm and I have 50 gallons).

I had previously purchased a Salifert Ammonia test kit on Amazon. The box came kind of banged up and the instructions looked like they had gotten wet and dried. The day after adding the chemicals I tested the ammonia and essentially got a 0 reading. I thought that was odd, so I pulled out my API test kit for my freshwater aquarium and it turned green pretty fast indicating a 2ppm ammonia reading. I thought the Salifert test was bad, so I took a water sample to my LFS and had them use their API AquaSpin and they also got an ammonia reading of 2ppm.

I bought a new Salifert test kit there and tested again when I got home. This one has the same reading, essentially 0ppm ammonia. It's not a complicated test, 2ml water, 0.5ml reagent, swirl for 30 seconds, 0.5ml reagent, swirl for 10 seconds then wait 3 minutes and swirl again for 5 seconds. I honestly have no idea what I could be doing wrong, could I have gotten two bad tests? They have different expiration dates.

API:

Salifert:

 

[stE26wy14]

Yesterday I started cycling a new saltwater tank, I added Fritz TurboStart and 10ml of Dr. Tim's Ammonium Chloride (it said 5ml for each 25 gallon to get to 2ppm and I have 50 gallons).

I had previously purchased a Salifert Ammonia test kit on Amazon. The box came kind of banged up and the instructions looked like they had gotten wet and dried. The day after adding the chemicals I tested the ammonia and essentially got a 0 reading. I thought that was odd, so I pulled out my API test kit for my freshwater aquarium and it turned green pretty fast indicating a 2ppm ammonia reading. I thought the Salifert test was bad, so I took a water sample to my LFS and had them use their API AquaSpin and they also got an ammonia reading of 2ppm.

I bought a new Salifert test kit there and tested again when I got home. This one has the same reading, essentially 0ppm ammonia. It's not a complicated test, 2ml water, 0.5ml reagent, swirl for 30 seconds, 0.5ml reagent, swirl for 10 seconds then wait 3 minutes and swirl again for 5 seconds. I honestly have no idea what I could be doing wrong, could I have gotten two bad tests? They have different expiration dates.

API:

Salifert:

can I just ask why u using freshwater kits?

 

[mpatterson42]

can I just ask why u using freshwater kits?

I was just curious what it would say. I never planned to use the API kit for the saltwater (was planning on just using Salifert and Hanna for the saltwater) I just thought it was odd I was getting a 0ppm ammonia result when it should've been 2ppm or higher.

 

[stE26wy14]

I’m also pretty sure u gotta cap the bottle and flip it onto the cap side down for salifert

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I don’t know what might explain the result difference.

 

[mpatterson42]

I brought the test back to the LFS with a water sample and had them try and they got then same result. They used an API test, both the drops and the Aquaspin, and it came out to 2ppm. They even opened another Salifert kit and this one read 0.25ppm. They suggested I stick with the API kit.