Alk testers

lawrence70 · May 9, 2023

Here’s a good question.
I have 3 alk testers. Hanna Salifert and Red Sea pro KH
Did a test today using all 3 and here’s what I got.
hanna-8.8
Salifert-8.9
Red Sea-7.0
Did it twice and numbers were the same.
what gives??
Thoughts???

R-balljunkie · May 9, 2023

i ran redsea reagent in my mastertronic for a year, could never ever get a good reading. Switched to salifert and matched up immediately. Bottom line, don't trust redsea alkalinity readings.....all the other tests seem to read fine, just no the alkalinity tests.

lawrence70 · May 9, 2023

R-balljunkie said:
i ran redsea reagent in my mastertronic for a year, could never ever get a good reading. Switched to salifert and matched up immediately. Bottom line, don't trust redsea alkalinity readings.....all the other tests seem to read fine, just no the alkalinity tests.

Thanks. Good to know. I have used salifert over 20 years. I won the Red Sea in a lfs raffle and thought I would see.
Good now I can toss it! Thanks again

shadyraro · May 22, 2023

I tested my alk twice last night with a hanna then checked it with salifert and the hanna read 1.1 lower than salifert. This doesn't help me as I've always used hanna to check alk and I'm about to start dosing alk because of the low readings, so now I just don't know what reading is correct.

Reef. · May 22, 2023

Trust salifert, take the reading as soon as it turns a lavender colour, not pink, I have both and also Aqua forest, trust both the Salifert and AF above Hanna.

shadyraro · May 22, 2023

Reef. said:
Trust salifert, take the reading as soon as it turns a lavender colour, not pink, I have both and also Aqua forest, trust both the Salifert and AF above Hanna.

Hanna alk is supposed to be one of the most accurate testers from what I’ve read, so it’s quite disappointing if this isn’t the case.

Reef. · May 22, 2023

shadyraro said:
Hanna alk is supposed to be one of the most accurate testers from what I’ve read, so it’s quite disappointing if this isn’t the case.

Not heard many claim it to be the most accurate, easy to preform the test is the claim I mostly hear.
I four it to be no easier than salifert time to clean the vials, and the reagent would give varying results depending on the age of the reagent and from bottle to bottle.

shadyraro · May 22, 2023

Reef. said:
Not heard many claim it to be the most accurate, easy to preform the test is the claim I mostly hear.
I four it to be no easier than salifert time to clean the vials, and the reagent would give varying results depending on the age of the reagent and from bottle to bottle.

Well I did recently have to get a new alk Reagant bottle and it was a different part number to the previous bottle, but apparently this didn’t matter and they were still the same reagent. It’s got me thinking now tho because since using the new bottle my alk levels have been reading low..

Reef. · May 22, 2023

shadyraro said:
Well I did recently have to get a new alk Reagant bottle and it was a different part number to the previous bottle, but apparently this didn’t matter and they were still the same reagent. It’s got me thinking now tho because since using the new bottle my alk levels have been reading low..

As long as it is consistent is the main thing, I ended up buying a salfert just to use to keep an eye on the accuracy of the Hanna, ended up just using the salifert exclusively, so easy to do the test, you don’t need to be ocd about cleaning the vials and it’s cheap and accurate.