Red sea po4 test kits and wilisoni

Reefkeepers Archive

2500 Club Member
View Badges
Joined
May 30, 2023
Messages
3,159
Reaction score
2,917
Location
Falmouth
What state or country do you live in
Maine
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
For some context, I am out of reagent packets for my hanna checkers and went to my LFS to test phosphates, 4 days ago my phosphates measured 0.04, and since they also ran out of packets they used the red sea phosphate pro, it is giving us readings of , 0.16 on low range and 0.68 on high range, which makes no sense. and since neither of us trust the red sea phosphate test I want to know what you think? Faulty reading? I don't have any fish in my tank and am running some GFO, I also wanted to add a wilisoni today and, if these readings are accurate, wanted to know if it will be fine in my system. Either way do you know a more accurate way to test this?
20230905_153525.jpg

Low range
20230905_153947.jpg

High range
 
From my experience with various phosphate tests, they are rarely give false high results (if done properly). Bad tests usually give false low phosphate readings. I'll double check with another test brand - for ex Salifert. If there is that high phosphate it will definitely show it.
 
From my experience with various phosphate tests, they are rarely give false high results (if done properly). Bad tests usually give false low phosphate readings. I'll double check with another test brand - for ex Salifert. If there is that high phosphate it will definitely show it.
Though the low phosphate display at the LFS tested the same, which is strange considering the corals...
 
Though the low phosphate display at the LFS tested the same, which is strange considering the corals...
I just did the exact same thing. After re-reading the instructions, it is 1ml of tank water and 16 ml of RO water. So weird.
 
What’s a wilisoni?
It's a kind of LPS "brain coral" formerly australophyllia, related to symphyllia, and a sandbed coral, ended up getting it today, it was a faulty test reading. This is what it looks like

20230905_194732.jpg

It is closed up as I just added it
 
It's a kind of LPS "brain coral" formerly australophyllia, related to symphyllia, and a sandbed coral, ended up getting it today, it was a faulty test reading. This is what it looks like

20230905_194732.jpg

It is closed up as I just added it
Whether the phosphate is as low as 0.04ppm or as high as 0.70ppm, the coral will be doing fine!


Richard Ross has great corals at 1.24 ppm phosphate:


1658938252250.jpeg
 
Though the low phosphate display at the LFS tested the same, which is strange considering the corals...
At the LFS they have to know how to use RedSea tests. From your pictures it looks results from low range test were off chart (>.16) that is why they have to go for the high range one using only 1 ml tank water and 16 ml RO/DI and then results should be multiplied by 16.
So the results from your low range tests are not .16 ppm they are >.16 and can not be used. The valid ones are from high range which shows 0.04*16=0.64 ppm. By the way from the picture it looks for me that it is closer to 0.08 *16=1.28 ppm
 

IF YOU HAD TO TAKE A REEFING EXAM, WOULD YOU PASS?

  • Yes!

    Votes: 32 45.7%
  • Not yet, but I have one that I want to buy in mind!

    Votes: 9 12.9%
  • No.

    Votes: 26 37.1%
  • Other (please explain).

    Votes: 3 4.3%
Back
Top