Aquarium pharmaceuticals test kit

[RLIrwin]

I just switched from a red sea nitrate test kit to aquarium pharmaceuticals.
The readings were substantially different (2.5 - 5 with old kit, 10 with new).
I suppose it is possible that the nitrate went up that much in one week, but it
has been quite stable for six months. Does anyone know which kit is likely to
be more accurate?

Thanks

[j]

RLIrwin wrote:

> I just switched from a red sea nitrate test kit to aquarium pharmaceuticals.
> The readings were substantially different (2.5 - 5 with old kit, 10 with new).
> I suppose it is possible that the nitrate went up that much in one week, but it
> has been quite stable for six months. Does anyone know which kit is likely to
> be more accurate?
>
> Thanks

In my experience, the Aquarium pharmaceuticals nitrate test is highly
unreliable. I got readings of 60+ in an otherwise perfectly healthy
reef type setup that 10 months old. I switched FasTest which reads less
than 10 ppm (it measures by 10's) on a regular basis.

[Pszemol]

"j" > wrote in message ...
> In my experience, the Aquarium pharmaceuticals nitrate test is highly
> unreliable. I got readings of 60+ in an otherwise perfectly healthy
> reef type setup that 10 months old. I switched FasTest which reads less
> than 10 ppm (it measures by 10's) on a regular basis.

These tests use metal powder which collects on the bottom of the bottle.
You have to be very strict in following manufacturer directions in mixing
bottles, time spent on mixing and time when to do final readings...
Every small thing like this is very important to get accurate readings.