Hannah Dkh Checker Showing Impossible Results? Or is it?

[Waters]

Don't know if this is a reliable solution but I look at the salt container to see what it is supposed to mix up at (Red Sea Blue mixes up to 8.0 at 8.025). I see which test comes closest to that number while testing freshly mixed saltwater.

 

[Jeeperz]

I'm using reef crystals. My ALK numbers never come close to what others report.

 

[rmurken]

Has anyone found that the Hanna reagent often has bits of junk in it? I’ve had two bottles that have gook at the bottom. it gets pulled up in the syringe, makes it into the cuvette, and then I have to wonder if it floated in front of the LED.

$15 for a bottle of supposedly super-precise pH indicator and acid, and it has gook in the bottom. That’s, you know, great.

Beyond that, I have lived all the struggles with the Hanna dKh checker and the syringes and the tips and the reagent and the Read Sea Test...and all I can say is yesssssssssss.

 

[Jeeperz]

Yes, my first, original bottle had garbage floating in it. Just now on to my second bottle that doesn't seem to have the floaters and get this... Wildly different numbers, like 4 dkh different.

 

[rmurken]

Don't know if this is a reliable solution but I look at the salt container to see what it is supposed to mix up at (Red Sea Blue mixes up to 8.0 at 8.025). I see which test comes closest to that number while testing freshly mixed saltwater.

That’s an interesting approach!

 

[Sleepydoc]

Brand new Hanna checker hi755s. Same plunger, different tip, as what was provided by Hanna. Makes me really question Hanna qc.

why does a different style of plunger make you question Hanna’s QC? It’s just a different style of syringe. The plunger doesn’t affect the accuracy.

for the others reporting debris in the reagent, is it in new bottles or used ones? I’ve noticed some crust building up around the top of my half-used bottle which I assumed is dried up reagent. I’ve never noticed debris, though. As I noted above, my results have at least been consistent within the same bottle.

 

[rmurken]

for the others reporting debris in the reagent, is it in new bottles or used ones?

In my case, brand new, just opened. It looks like mold or some kind of floating fuzzy crud, about the same color (but darker) as the reagent. Have had the issue with two recent bottles.

 

[Jeeperz]

Same with my bottle. But, the bottle with floaters measures about .2 dkh above my red sea, my new bottle is about 4 dkh above that. Think I got a bad bottle

 

[homer1475]

I've questioned @Hanna Instruments about the floaties, and was told its from being exposed to air and will not affect the test result one bit(in a short version). They actually went into this deep scientific meaning on why it happens, but after the first paragragh I kind of got lossed and my eyes just glazed over.

I would never question the manufacturer about their product and have never noticed any difference between bottles that have them and bottles that don't. I have noticed though that by time I get to the bottom of the bottle, most bottles always have some floaties in them.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I've questioned @Hanna Instruments

I would never question the manufacturer about their product and have never noticed any difference between bottles that have them and bottles that don't. I have noticed though that by time I get to the bottom of the bottle, most bottles always have some floaties in them.

with no disrespect to Hanna who I do not recall having much quibble with (aside from their calcium checker design being overly sensitive to calcium in the control sample), but some manufacturers intentionally try to sound like they know a lot when in reality they often do not even properly understand their own products.

 

[Sleepydoc]

with no disrespect to Hanna who I do not recall having much quibble with (aside from their calcium checker design being overly sensitive to calcium in the control sample), but some manufacturers intentionally try to sound like they know a lot when in reality they often do not even properly understand their own products.

I suspect that the chemists and engineers that actually know about the product design are generally not the ones answering questions from the tech support line in most cases. The end result is you either have a low-level person that knows very little asking someone who does know and relaying the answer back (best case,) or you have the low-level person answering based on limited information.

Then you have the companies that either acquire a product in some fashion from another company or that have a product for which the technical staff with actual knowledge of the product have left the company...

As I've said before, when I read the posts online I don't envy the companies trying to make products for consumers - you have people who don't know the what a significant digit is, don't know the difference between precision and accuracy, may or may not clean and store the equipment/reagents properly and in some cases don't even know how to properly read a syringe.