The Best Test Kit - A Different Philosophy

[Phil Cusimano]

Here ... Here ... Outstanding article! I'm in agreement it's not about which are the best test kits, it's all about which give you repeatable, consistency, stable result, staying with acceptable parameters, which leads to the best health and well-being of our precious coral and fish ... that after all is the bottom line. P.S. I always shoot for the consistent middle numbers of the accepted parameters, for what it's worth.

 

[Brew12]

I thinking picking test sets is something best done by the individual. Personally, I find the API test sets are typically the easiest to use. That said, I don't use all API. I find some of the colors are very difficult for me to get an accurate reading on. My son had no problem reading them. I think many people have varying levels of color blindness that is never properly identified. Multiple people can look at a the same test and come up with different results.
I found that I don't have this issue with the titration based tests. If it is color comparison, I need to find test sets that work in a color range that best fits to what i see.

 

[Phil Cusimano]

I thinking picking test sets is something best done by the individual. Personally, I find the API test sets are typically the easiest to use. That said, I don't use all API. I find some of the colors are very difficult for me to get an accurate reading on. My son had no problem reading them. I think many people have varying levels of color blindness that is never properly identified. Multiple people can look at a the same test and come up with different results.
I found that I don't have this issue with the titration based tests. If it is color comparison, I need to find test sets that work in a color range that best fits to what i see.

I absolutely agree, with your assessment, personally I use three brands, Salifert, Red Sea, and Hanna. That said, I too have an issue with colors and some are more difficult to read accurately than other. Example phosphate and alkalinity drive me nuts, so for those, I use Hanna alkalinity and phosphate tests the rest I used Red Sea and salifert. Right, I don't have and issue with any test kits that use titration. Heck yeah, definitely have some slight degree of color blindness. Absolutely, I also believe that many people have varying degrees of color blindness that goes unnoticed or they're just simply not aware of the problem. Maybe I should experiment with API, who knows maybe they'll work better for me.

 

[JoshH]

Excellent article and a great mind set to hopefully steer a newbie towards. New myself to the hobby with SOOOO many options it can be an overwhelming endeavour to select the best kits for our systems.

 

[dbl]

Excellent article and a great mind set to hopefully steer a newbie towards. New myself to the hobby with SOOOO many options it can be an overwhelming endeavour to select the best kits for our systems.

Josh, good to see you doing your research while you wait for that new sump to get your build going. See if you can find some friends or even local reefers and see if you can check out some test kits they're using.

 

[JoshH]

It's definitely been quite the learning curve that's for sure. Kind of feel a lot like your tag "Ask ten people one question about this hobby and you'll get twelve answers"

 

[tomboys]

I'm just starting out and when I wanted to decide on test kits before buying, I went on YouTube and watched someone perform all the tests, to see which kits I thought had the most obvious colour changes, and which had the least steps. I work in a lab, so I know I'll be comfortable doing the tests, I just wanted to make it as easy as possible. It's pointless having a really accurate test kit if your eyes aren't as accurate and you can't always tell exactly where the colour change happens. I haven't got the tank yet, but from what I've seen, for most parameters I've gone for Salifert. Hanna obviously stands out as well, but they're just too expensive in the UK (I may get the phosphate checker though).