Salifert vs Hanna NO3 and PO4. Way off!

[smd189]

Good morning. I have been using Salifert for almost two years. Since day 1 my NO3 has been under 5ppm whole PO4 has been .05 to 0.
I just purchased Hanna NO3 HR and PO4 ULR. They show NO3 at 14-15ppm and PO4 is .25. These numbers aren’t even in the same ballpark. Everything looks fine and happy.

Which one do I believe or do I assume the real number is in the middle? Thanks.

 

[LeftyReefer]

My hanna checkers always seem to come out pretty close to my Red Sea test kits, but I don't have the salifert kits to compare too, sorry.

Are you able to repeat the results on both sets of tests? If yes, then I'd probably want to get a third opinion to see which test result is closer to correct. Maybe have your LFS (or two of them) check it and see what they get.

 

[Subonidio]

Hi

I use Hannah ....I'm a SPS reefer . Makes sense bi notice salifert have a variation results 5-10+/- ppm compared to Hannah.

You are fine with those numbers on Nitrates


A little high on phosphates to my liking ....but don't chase numbers ok

Just check those numbers don't creep up on you

 

[smd189]

Hi

I use Hannah ....I'm a SPS reefer . Makes sense bi notice salifert have a variation results 5-10+/- ppm compared to Hannah.

You are fine with those numbers on Nitrates


A little high on phosphates to my liking ....but don't chase numbers ok

Just check those numbers don't creep up on you

Thank you. I’ve wondered why I kept having algae issues when my nut. Were both nearly 0. This might be it. What I thought was extremely low, might have actually been moderate to high. Thanks.

 

[smd189]

My hanna checkers always seem to come out pretty close to my Red Sea test kits, but I don't have the salifert kits to compare too, sorry.

Are you able to repeat the results on both sets of tests? If yes, then I'd probably want to get a third opinion to see which test result is closer to correct. Maybe have your LFS (or two of them) check it and see what they get.

I repeat the test back to back as well as each day. Hanna has been between 12-15 each time while Salifert is always <5. Same with PO4. Hanna is always .18-.22 while Salifert is always 0-.05. Thanks.

 

[smd189]

I repeat the test back to back as well as each day. Hanna has been between 12-15 each time while Salifert is always <5. Same with PO4. Hanna is always .18-.22 while Salifert is always 0-.05. Thanks.

 

[LeftyReefer]

For what it's worth, I trust my Hanna nitrate and phosphate checkers. They've always seemed pretty accurate to me. my nitrates and phosphates are always pretty low. like dangerously low. under 1 ppm all the time. my last test was nitrates 0.50 ppm and phosphates 0.04 ppm two days ago.

A few months ago, I came home from work and several of my SPS had RTN'd overnight.
Started running all my tests to see what was up and the nitrate checker came back with a 0.0. I didn't believe it because it had never dropped that low on my checker before. i had always registered a little bit of nitrates. Ran it again, got the same 0.0. Started dosing nitrates and it started registering nitrates again, and everything started recovering. I now dose nitrates to keep it from ever hitting 0.0 again. My nitrate checker seems to be pretty spot on as far as nitrates and phosphates go. Can't say I have the same faith in some of the other Hanna checkers though.

 

[Dan_P]

Good morning. I have been using Salifert for almost two years. Since day 1 my NO3 has been under 5ppm whole PO4 has been .05 to 0.
I just purchased Hanna NO3 HR and PO4 ULR. They show NO3 at 14-15ppm and PO4 is .25. These numbers aren’t even in the same ballpark. Everything looks fine and happy.

Which one do I believe or do I assume the real number is in the middle? Thanks.

The photometer is more reliable than the human eye for judging color intensity. Hanna reagent quality is likely to be higher than Salifert because of this. The human eye cannot sense bad quality reagents.

No test kit but Hanna comes with an estimate of error in test results. We have no idea about Salifert accuracy.

Overall, Hanna has a higher probability of producing results closer to the truth than Salifert.

On a side note, nitrate and phosphate concentration guidelines are at best guesses, not strict rules. So the fact your aquarium occupants are doing fine may not be surprising.

 

[smd189]

Thank you. Over the last few months, I chased GHA, then dinos, and then dinos and GHA. When the GHA appeared, I was testing everything every few days and nutrients were basically undetectable on Salifert. Now I know they were probably much higher. Thanks.