should I trust Api test or Hannah egg tester

Auto-pilot · May 27, 2023

I have a Hannah calcium tester and I was sceptical about it's test results it is giving me, a reading of 460ppm. I bought an API test and I tested my water and it told me 340ppm. What should I trust more? A new API test kit or my 3 year old Hannah tester. All reagents are not expired.

twelvefive · May 27, 2023

Mix a fresh batch of salt, test with both, see which is closer.

Norcoreefer · May 27, 2023

API is garbage and anyone will tell you that. Get yourself a salifert test kit. Calibrate your hanna then test.

Gtinnel · May 27, 2023

twelvefive said:
Mix a fresh batch of salt, test with both, see which is closer.

That or take a sample to a lfs that could test it.

Norcoreefer · May 27, 2023

Gtinnel said:
That or take a sample to a lfs that could test it.

Lol I wouldn't even trust LFS because most of them are also using API or their staff isn't trained in testing properly. You want something done right, do it yourself.

Gtinnel · May 27, 2023

Norcoreefer said:
Lol I wouldn't even trust LFS because most of them are also using API or their staff isn't trained in testing properly. You want something done right, do it yourself.

Maybe I should’ve specified “trusted” lfs.

Auto-pilot · May 27, 2023

Cool I think I'm going to test a new bucket of salt. I'll see what's closer, I'm leaning toward not trusting the Hanna egg. I'll post my results

Norcoreefer · May 27, 2023

Auto-pilot said:
Cool I think I'm going to test a new bucket of salt. I'll see what's closer, I'm leaning toward not trusting the Hanna egg

I'd trust the hanna over api I'll tell ya that much lol

Auto-pilot · May 27, 2023

Norcoreefer said:
I'd trust the hanna over api I'll tell ya that much lol

Yeah the calcium tester seems to be a little unreliable according to some. The phosphate and alkalinity is great

Nano_Man · May 27, 2023

API

Garf · May 27, 2023

Nman said:
API

I’m getting extremely predictable results combining the photometer in the egg with API phos and nitrate reagents, not calcium admittedly. Unless a stock solution with a known concentration is used to calibrate any results I’m not sure anyone is in a position to judge.

Nano_Man · May 27, 2023

Garf said:
I’m getting extremely predictable results combining the photometer in the egg with API phos and nitrate reagents, not calcium admittedly. Unless a stock solution with a known concentration is used to calibrate any results I’m not sure anyone is in a position to judge.

Sorry Iam not judging you imo api is not reliable I moved to salfert which is reliable imo
I’ve never used hanna so I carnt be judged on that imo . Hope all your testing goes good for you . The photo was for a bit of humour. Don’t judge me for having a sense of humour it was how I was made imo . Good luck

nereefpat · May 27, 2023

APIs calcium kit is just fine. It's +/- 20 ppm. I would trust that over a Hanna checker for Ca.

jda · May 27, 2023

Salifert are too cheap and accurate to not have a Calcium and Alk around to double check things, IMO.

Salty_Northerner · May 27, 2023

Do what I did, not directly related to this but rather salinity. I checked 2 SG floating arm ones against a refractometer and checked it to my Hanna tester and the swing arm testers read 1.026 the other 1.023 and refractometer 1.028. The Hanna 1.025 against my 20 year old glass floating hydrometer. The glass one and Hanna were spot on.

I'm done chasing numbers and if I kept the refractometer and other 2 devices it drive me nuts so in the garbage they went.

Imho you may be using the Hanna improperly perhaps, or the glass vial is scratched and or dirty? API are garbage in my past experience using them.

Do me a favor and take a photo of the vial that's all ready to drop in the Hanna. I want to see the color. My wife and myself place bets on looking at the color before I drop it in the egg and press the button for a number. We're both getting pretty close guessing the level just by the color. I know it's silly but it's a game we play and have fun guessing and we're actually getting darn close at what the egg spits out

Dburr1014 · May 27, 2023

Auto-pilot said:
I have a Hannah calcium tester and I was sceptical about it's test results it is giving me, a reading of 460ppm. I bought an API test and I tested my water and it told me 340ppm. What should I trust more? A new API test kit or my 3 year old Hannah tester. All reagents are not expired.

Personally, average them out and call it a day. 400ppm is about right.
Not that important at that level.

threebuoys · May 27, 2023

I've had good experience with the Salifert calcium test kit. Very consistent and reacts predictably when I change my dosing.

Auto-pilot · May 29, 2023

Ok I mixed up a new batch of slat water, my salt is 450 when mixed. API read somewhere in the 430s and my Hanna tester read 575. Definitely something wrong with my egg tester, I've been running my calcium extremely low not realizing my egg tester was wrong I suspect. Calcium has probably been around 320 for months.

Auto-pilot · May 29, 2023

Nman said:
API

I'd take those out of the trash because the API was by far closer than that expensive egg tester

C_AWOL · May 29, 2023

If I had to base it off of currently using a hanna marine master + red sea + a donated api calcium test I would actually pick the api contrary to everyone bashing their test kits as being inaccurate trash. My hanna registers CA as very different than both the api and red sea which are fairly close to each other.

Although unrelated, for nitrate in my experience as well it lines up with my salifert and hanna just fine for anything around 20-40 just fine as a general reading since anything higher in most tanks should be under consideration of getting addressed.

The only api test that I can think off of the top of my head that I would outright skip is the nitrite one due to how unimportant it is in a marine situation and copper (or any copper test kit other than a hanna for that matter) due to difficulty of reading.