Bad Salifert Ammonia Test Kit

[deadhead_45yrs]

So I have a 150 gal. Bare bottom tank with marine pure in sump and reef saver rock (that was not cured). I started to cycle the tank on January 28th, used Dr. Tim's one and only bacteria, and ammonia at a low dose (1 ppm). Water source zero TDS RODI tested zero ppm Ammonia.

I have been getting a reading of between .o25 ppm and .5 ppm with the Salifert kit with an expiration date of 06/2020 for weeks... So I decided that something was wrong and so I ordered a Red Sea test kit. I used this kit and tested the tank at zero ppm and re-dosed with Dr. Tim's Ammonia to 2 ppm.
Retested with the Salifert kit and it seems clear to me that it does not work. Is this some rare case or is this common... I have wasted weeks waiting for the tank to cycle per this test kit.

 

[Big G]

Welcome to R2R! Not cool. But this kinda stuff does happen with hobby grade test kits and meds too. Recently Copper Safe had a really bad problem with the concentration of copper varying quite a bit from bottle to bottle.
But that being said, many of us do use more than one brand of test kit to validate levels and findings.

 

[wesman42]

I had a Salifert nitrate test kit go bad. Made me think my nitrates were sky high and out of balance with phosphates. Turns out they're nearly 0.

 

[deadhead_45yrs]

Thanks for the replies... will be testing the ammonia level this afternoon to confirm that the cycle is truly complete and the tank is ready for a fish.
Also see that the post had a typo. Should have said "reading of between .25 ppm and .5 ppm" rather than "reading of between .o25 ppm and .5 ppm".

 

[SCReef'n]

Just experienced a similar situation tonight, added Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride shooting for 2ppm based on my brand new Salifert test kit. stopped at 1.5ppm when I got suspicious that I had added quite a bit more than the bottle estimated was necessary 1ml per 20 gallons. Tested using an API test kit ammonia is off the chart. Guess its water change time.......

 

[DancingWind]

Just experienced a similar situation tonight, added Dr. Tim's ammonium chloride shooting for 2ppm based on my brand new Salifert test kit. stopped at 1.5ppm when I got suspicious that I had added quite a bit more than the bottle estimated was necessary 1ml per 20 gallons. Tested using an API test kit ammonia is off the chart. Guess its water change time.......

My experience also Salifert seems to max out on 1.5ppm colour-wise even though both my rock barrel and qt tank had like 8ppm (API kit said qt was at 8ppm, barrel darker than 8 ppt ... cycling failed in barrel by the time i started DT, did 75% on qt and that seems to be cycling).
now i'm cycling DT ... salifert says 0-0.25ppm ... cant figure out the colour. API says 2ppm ... can't be. I put ~1.25ppm ammonium chloride (pharmacy 10% solution) according to ammonium calculator.
Seachem's Alert tag is blue ~0.5ppm