Little story:
Since my Hanna PO4 URL checker always turned on and appeared to work properly, I always assumed that, despite the glorious reviews, it probably wasn't that great.
In fact, according the PO4 URL checker, both my display and my coral quarantine were always a random number between 0.26 and 0.11, never lower.
I changed the battery, and I finally got 3 results in the range of 0.03 and 0.08 ppm, for the first time.
A week passed, and it went back to recording much higher results.
Well, finally, it's started to work properly after I started using an expensive battery. I got a four pack of the energizer ultimate lithium after watching this really in-depth review of AAA batteries.
Today, I checked the checker against a standard PO4 solution, and it finally read 0.04 ppm, the precise amount of PO4 in the sample.
Is this issue with batteries known? How can a checker turn on, work fine, but give different results depending on quality/level of change of the battery?
Also, very weird that I had to get really good AAA batteries from a reputable brand in order to get the checker to work properly.
Moral of the story:
If ur hanna checker is giving you one or more unexpected readings, try new batteries before buying new test kits or assuming something is going on.
This issue may be specific to the Ultra-Low Range checkers, since the difference in light transmittance the checker needs to pick up and measure is particularly small for URL checkers.
Since my Hanna PO4 URL checker always turned on and appeared to work properly, I always assumed that, despite the glorious reviews, it probably wasn't that great.
In fact, according the PO4 URL checker, both my display and my coral quarantine were always a random number between 0.26 and 0.11, never lower.
I changed the battery, and I finally got 3 results in the range of 0.03 and 0.08 ppm, for the first time.
A week passed, and it went back to recording much higher results.
Well, finally, it's started to work properly after I started using an expensive battery. I got a four pack of the energizer ultimate lithium after watching this really in-depth review of AAA batteries.
Today, I checked the checker against a standard PO4 solution, and it finally read 0.04 ppm, the precise amount of PO4 in the sample.
Is this issue with batteries known? How can a checker turn on, work fine, but give different results depending on quality/level of change of the battery?
Also, very weird that I had to get really good AAA batteries from a reputable brand in order to get the checker to work properly.
Moral of the story:
If ur hanna checker is giving you one or more unexpected readings, try new batteries before buying new test kits or assuming something is going on.
This issue may be specific to the Ultra-Low Range checkers, since the difference in light transmittance the checker needs to pick up and measure is particularly small for URL checkers.