Has anyone used the Hanna checkers for alkalinty and calcium ? I just received mine and they are awesome and easy to use. I beleive they are far better than other test kits. So has anyone else tried these?
Hanna checkers
- Thread starter mike007
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Connie
Valuable Member
I have the phosphate, Alk and Calcium checkers. The phosphate and Alk are very accurate and love them. My calcium checker isn't accurate at all. It ALWAYS shows over 600. When I use two other tests on the same water, the reading will be 400.
jt17
Valuable Member
Love my hanna alk and phosphate checker. I switched to Red Sea calcium checker for better accuracy. The slightest error in dispensing the .1 ml of slat water for the Hanna is much more significant than the slightest error measuring 5 ml for Red Sea.
feh
Valuable Member
The calcium checker uses a very small sample and is very sensitive to mistakes in measuring the sample water. Other than that I like it. Everything needs to be measured carefully. They have a video floating around on how to use the Ca checker. I would recommend watching it .
CoryC
Valuable Member
Love my alk checker. probably been through ten bottles of reagent. Phosphate checker is good, as long as you can get the reagent dissolved in time. it's easier for me to use my RSP calcium test than to try and dispense the fourteen steps on my calcium checker.
jservedio
Active Member
I LOVE my Alkalinity checker (however, it isn't accurate, but is VERY precise) and have been through several bottles of reagent. And even better, the phosphate checker is as accurate and precise as a several thousand dollar spectrometer.
You may need to run a known alkalinity sample in the Alk checker to figure out how far off it is. This way you can adjust your readings to be both accurate and precise. For example, my checker is consistently 8ppm too high. Since I know that, I can subtract 10ppm from my readout to get my exact Alkalinity. Advanced Aquarist mapped out the error in the Hanna Alk checker and they consistently read high. Beside that, it is SUPER convenient and it can tell you exactly how stable your Alkalinity is.
For the Calcium Checker, don't buy it - it is garbage. It is a pain, very error prone, and not even that accurate. Hopefully they will change the reagents to make it much more easy and increase the sample size.
For your Alkalinity Checker - Replace the 1ml syringe used for dosing the reagent - it isn't very accurate. Spend $20 and get a high-quality 1ml and 10ml pipette. This way you can eliminate any user error and maximize the quality of your results. If you don't want to do that, at least use the 1ml syringe from an old Salifert test since those syringes are much higher quality (usually).
You may need to run a known alkalinity sample in the Alk checker to figure out how far off it is. This way you can adjust your readings to be both accurate and precise. For example, my checker is consistently 8ppm too high. Since I know that, I can subtract 10ppm from my readout to get my exact Alkalinity. Advanced Aquarist mapped out the error in the Hanna Alk checker and they consistently read high. Beside that, it is SUPER convenient and it can tell you exactly how stable your Alkalinity is.
For the Calcium Checker, don't buy it - it is garbage. It is a pain, very error prone, and not even that accurate. Hopefully they will change the reagents to make it much more easy and increase the sample size.
For your Alkalinity Checker - Replace the 1ml syringe used for dosing the reagent - it isn't very accurate. Spend $20 and get a high-quality 1ml and 10ml pipette. This way you can eliminate any user error and maximize the quality of your results. If you don't want to do that, at least use the 1ml syringe from an old Salifert test since those syringes are much higher quality (usually).
Last edited:
Daniel@R2R
Living the Reef Life
They had a big recall on reagents, but should be coming available like before. They got the problem fixed.
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feh
Valuable Member
Oh really? I wish they would make that a little more public. Got any lot numbers? I know the last Ca reagent I had I kept getting really high readings and I don't think I was putting too much sample water in. I'll have to see if I can dig up some info on that. The one I'm using now seem to be getting what I usually see.
