p7willm
Active Member
A little review of the magnetic stirrer from SR aquaristik, https://sraquaristik.com/product/speed-test/.
The first one I got did not work correctly. I do not think this is much of a problem cause I would expect some of these units to be faulty. They do not cost thousands and I would not expect each one to be checked before shipping. What is important is how the company handles a problem when one occurs. SR did a wonderful job. I sent an email about the problem and they immediately emailed back that they were sorry and would ship a new one right out and they asked if I would send the broken one back so they could find out why it was broken to try to be better in the future. I got the new stirrer, along with some food and a feed ring to say they were sorry, along with a postage paid return label. All in all a wonderful example of how I think a company should handle it.
Now that I have a good copy of the stirrer lets talk about it. It is small, light, and runs on a 9 volt battery so it is portable and does not need to be plugged in. I will update when the battery dies. It lives in the cabinet with my other testing stuff and comes out when I want to test.
It is made to hold bottles the size of the Red Sea test kits so bigger ones will not fit, there is a holder for the bottle so a bigger bottle will not be close enough to spin the stirrer. I guess you could cut the holder off but then you would have to hold the bottle to spin it. API and Hannah bottles fit but the stirrer pill will not fit. So it is great for the correct size bottle and bad for any other.
Fill the bottle with water, drop in the stirrer pill, put it on the device, and turn it on. The little pill spins and you can control the speed, from stopped to too fast, with a knob.
Add your reagents. When swishing them by hand I always worried I was not swishing aggressively enough or I was too aggressive and the liquid would slosh out. Not a worry here. Another feature is that waiting whatever time you need to swish, according to test instructions, you have both hands free so you can put the top on the reagent and get the next one ready to go. I was getting fairly good and screwing on bottle tops one handed but this is far easier.
This really comes into its own when doing a titration. Mix up all the other reagents and drop the titrating reagent in drop by drop. The solution is constantly spinning and the only thing you need to pay attention to is dropping the reagent in. The front of the holder is cut out so you can easily see the color of the solution. I think there is a similar stirrer out there with a built in light but unless you want to do the tests in a dark closet this one lets in more than enough light.
I already had a bunch of Red Sea tests so I have enough bottles that fit but if I did not the single bottle that comes with the stirrer might be a problem. I like to do all my tests then clean up and if I did not have other bottles I would have to clean the bottle out between each test. SR does not sell bottles alone but I am sure you can fine them on the web.
The other problem is that it only comes with one stir pill, but Amazon came through at https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V838X9I/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 with 10 more for $15. They also have a stick https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TX30N4I/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 that you can use to pull out the pill for tests where you need to match colors.
The pill is coated in Teflon so, especially with our chemicals, there is no interaction with the test solution.
Can you live without it? Certainly yes. I personally think $50 is not too much to make testing, one of my least favorite things, easier, and it certainly does that. I also feel it might get some of the tougher reagents mixed easier. You can get lab stirrers, used to save a few bucks, but this is cheaper and does not need to be plugged in. The limitation is the bottles you can use.
Any questions?
The first one I got did not work correctly. I do not think this is much of a problem cause I would expect some of these units to be faulty. They do not cost thousands and I would not expect each one to be checked before shipping. What is important is how the company handles a problem when one occurs. SR did a wonderful job. I sent an email about the problem and they immediately emailed back that they were sorry and would ship a new one right out and they asked if I would send the broken one back so they could find out why it was broken to try to be better in the future. I got the new stirrer, along with some food and a feed ring to say they were sorry, along with a postage paid return label. All in all a wonderful example of how I think a company should handle it.
Now that I have a good copy of the stirrer lets talk about it. It is small, light, and runs on a 9 volt battery so it is portable and does not need to be plugged in. I will update when the battery dies. It lives in the cabinet with my other testing stuff and comes out when I want to test.
It is made to hold bottles the size of the Red Sea test kits so bigger ones will not fit, there is a holder for the bottle so a bigger bottle will not be close enough to spin the stirrer. I guess you could cut the holder off but then you would have to hold the bottle to spin it. API and Hannah bottles fit but the stirrer pill will not fit. So it is great for the correct size bottle and bad for any other.
Fill the bottle with water, drop in the stirrer pill, put it on the device, and turn it on. The little pill spins and you can control the speed, from stopped to too fast, with a knob.
Add your reagents. When swishing them by hand I always worried I was not swishing aggressively enough or I was too aggressive and the liquid would slosh out. Not a worry here. Another feature is that waiting whatever time you need to swish, according to test instructions, you have both hands free so you can put the top on the reagent and get the next one ready to go. I was getting fairly good and screwing on bottle tops one handed but this is far easier.
This really comes into its own when doing a titration. Mix up all the other reagents and drop the titrating reagent in drop by drop. The solution is constantly spinning and the only thing you need to pay attention to is dropping the reagent in. The front of the holder is cut out so you can easily see the color of the solution. I think there is a similar stirrer out there with a built in light but unless you want to do the tests in a dark closet this one lets in more than enough light.
I already had a bunch of Red Sea tests so I have enough bottles that fit but if I did not the single bottle that comes with the stirrer might be a problem. I like to do all my tests then clean up and if I did not have other bottles I would have to clean the bottle out between each test. SR does not sell bottles alone but I am sure you can fine them on the web.
The other problem is that it only comes with one stir pill, but Amazon came through at https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V838X9I/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 with 10 more for $15. They also have a stick https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00TX30N4I/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 that you can use to pull out the pill for tests where you need to match colors.
The pill is coated in Teflon so, especially with our chemicals, there is no interaction with the test solution.
Can you live without it? Certainly yes. I personally think $50 is not too much to make testing, one of my least favorite things, easier, and it certainly does that. I also feel it might get some of the tougher reagents mixed easier. You can get lab stirrers, used to save a few bucks, but this is cheaper and does not need to be plugged in. The limitation is the bottles you can use.
Any questions?
