Trouble getting consistent results with your Hanna Calcium checker? read this.

[Twitchy]

Some of you will find this obvious, but for others this will help greatly in getting consistent results.
I have never trusted my Hanna calcium checker to give me consistent results, I have tried many things, and have always been disappointed with the consistently compared to my other Hanna checkers, to the point of just not using it. I bought their special RODI water, careful testing, experimenting with premixing of the sample between adding "B", and everything else I could think of. Countless searches, and questions to fellow reefers yielded no answers. Some folks swear by them, while others agree that they are inconsistent. So I went about it scientifically. I bought some standards, and wasted countless tests. For those of you that do it right like my GF, and others who don't have issue it is painfully obvious, for those who have issue this is a eureka moment. It comes down to the 1 ul sample pipette pump. You should be depressing the pipette until you feel resistance to collect the sample, not until you bottom it out. Press it once while thinking about it, and it will make perfect sense. Depress it all the way to drain the sample into the vial. This resulted in a perfect samples, and was within 7 PPM of my standard. Finally repeatable results!

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Thanks for the write up! I've always felt the cal checker was underappreciated. Imo most people mess up their tests by using rodi water instead of distilled (for the test itself and for cleaning)

 

[Phil D.]

Sorry to say, but I have used the pipette exactly the way you say to. It's called "read the instructions"!! LOL! No really, thanks for the info. Also, a big one is to clean the cuvettes with RO water and NOT tap.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Sorry to say, but I have used the pipette exactly the way you say to. It's called "read the instructions"!! LOL! No really, thanks for the info. Also, a big one is to clean the cuvettes with RO water and NOT tap.

Clean with distilled, NOT ro

 

[anthonygf]

Clean with distilled, NOT ro

Why distilled and not RO?

 

[Twitchy]

Oh! That might be my next test, try using my RODI water vs. The magic bottled stuff Hanna sells, vs. Distilled from the store. I feel like the result may shift, but it should be consistent test to test on the same water source.

 

[chadfish]

Clean with distilled, NOT ro

There should be no difference between distilled water and RO/DI water. 0TDS is 0TDS. Those are just two methods to achieve the same thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the “distilled” water isn’t actually produced using RO/DI in the factory.

 

[xxkenny90xx]

There should be no difference between distilled water and RO/DI water. 0TDS is 0TDS. Those are just two methods to achieve the same thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the “distilled” water isn’t actually produced using RO/DI in the factory.

I have heard that before so I always test my distilled when I get a new jug. It's always 0tds. Steam distilled is cleaner than 0tds rodi. Unless your using brand new filters

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

IMO, the calcium checker is a very poorly designed kit with a freakish sensitivity to calcium in the blank.

There is no reason it needed to be this way, with a big multiplier on calcium in the blank, but they chose to force lots of errors with people assuming that tiny traces of calcium in the blank would not be an issue.

IMO, it should be redesigned, and barring that, should carry a warning that the requirement for distilled water in the blank is a serious issue that needs to be followed because of this special design, even if no other kit known to man has such an issue.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

There should be no difference between distilled water and RO/DI water. 0TDS is 0TDS. Those are just two methods to achieve the same thing. I wouldn’t be surprised if the “distilled” water isn’t actually produced using RO/DI in the factory.

"Should be" not different and "actually are" not different is the huge problem with this kit, IMO.

A 0-1 ppm TDS sample may enough calcium to give an erroneous reading.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Oh! That might be my next test, try using my RODI water vs. The magic bottled stuff Hanna sells, vs. Distilled from the store. I feel like the result may shift, but it should be consistent test to test on the same water source.

It will, IMO, depend entirely on how much calcium is actually in your RO/DI water, and that will vary widely among hobbyists.

 

[Twitchy]

"Should be" not different and "actually are" not different is the huge problem with this kit, IMO.

A 0-1 ppm TDS sample may enough calcium to give an erroneous reading.

You gave me another interesting idea... I wonder if I can run a test with just a water source, and if that result (if it is greater then 0) has any correlation to how much off an actual test result would be using that source of water.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You gave me another interesting idea... I wonder if I can run a test with just a water source, and if that result (if it is greater then 0) has any correlation to how much off an actual test result would be using that source of water.

The kit itself cannot directly detect the low levels that will interfere. The range says 200-600 ppm, and you'd need to detect less than 1 ppm.

 

[chadfish]

IMO, the calcium checker is a very poorly designed kit with a freakish sensitivity to calcium in the blank.

There is no reason it needed to be this way, with a big multiplier on calcium in the blank, but they chose to force lots of errors with people assuming that tiny traces of calcium in the blank would not be an issue.

IMO, it should be redesigned, and barring that, should carry a warning that the requirement for distilled water in the blank is a serious issue that needs to be followed because of this special design, even if no other kit known to man has such an issue.

Randy, what’s your favorite (home) Calcium detection method?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Randy, what’s your favorite (home) Calcium detection method?

I've not used it in a long time, but the Salifert calcium kit has a good reputation.

 

[fyrefightr]

So I have been using the red sea pro foundation kit but after some very poor results with my alk, I decided to read up and eventually get the hana pro test kit which tests for Alk, ultra low phos, and calcium. Everything works great EXCEPT the calcium. I have read the instructions over and over and watched numerous videos on the "right way" to test. I ensure the measurements are exact and my last results have been the following with no water changes or dosing.
Jan 28 420
Jan 29 466
Feb 2 448
Feb 7 484
Feb 10 521 Restested with my red sea and came up with 375

All results show it going up with no water change or dosing. Everything is consistent to the point of even having the 10ML facing me and wiping down the vial before putting it in the tester.

The only thing I have no confidence in because I cant control it is the push button syringe. How do you know it is consistently drawing the same amount of water? I do only push it to the first resistance and I do push it all the way down for the discharge. How confusing and frustrating.

 

[fyrefightr]

So I have been using the red sea pro foundation kit but after some very poor results with my alk, I decided to read up and eventually get the hana pro test kit which tests for Alk, ultra low phos, and calcium. Everything works great EXCEPT the calcium. I have read the instructions over and over and watched numerous videos on the "right way" to test. I ensure the measurements are exact and my last results have been the following with no water changes or dosing.
Jan 28 420
Jan 29 466
Feb 2 448
Feb 7 484
Feb 10 521 Restested with my red sea and came up with 375

All results show it going up with no water change or dosing. Everything is consistent to the point of even having the 10ML facing me and wiping down the vial before putting it in the tester.

The only thing I have no confidence in because I cant control it is the push button syringe. How do you know it is consistently drawing the same amount of water? I do only push it to the first resistance and I do push it all the way down for the discharge. How confusing and frustrating.

anyone have any advice?

 

[xxkenny90xx]

The only thing I have no confidence in because I cant control it is the push button syringe. How do you know it is consistently drawing the same amount of water? I do only push it to the first resistance and I do push it all the way down for the discharge. How confusing and frustrating.

I feel like once you feel the pressure and stop pushing the amount of the sample is pretty consistent

 

[burningmime]

So I have been using the red sea pro foundation kit but after some very poor results with my alk, I decided to read up and eventually get the hana pro test kit which tests for Alk, ultra low phos, and calcium. Everything works great EXCEPT the calcium. I have read the instructions over and over and watched numerous videos on the "right way" to test. I ensure the measurements are exact and my last results have been the following with no water changes or dosing.
Jan 28 420
Jan 29 466
Feb 2 448
Feb 7 484
Feb 10 521 Restested with my red sea and came up with 375

All results show it going up with no water change or dosing. Everything is consistent to the point of even having the 10ML facing me and wiping down the vial before putting it in the tester.

The only thing I have no confidence in because I cant control it is the push button syringe. How do you know it is consistently drawing the same amount of water? I do only push it to the first resistance and I do push it all the way down for the discharge. How confusing and frustrating.

Red Sea calcium is really good, sinc eyou don't have to do any dilution or whatever. Try the Red Sea again if you still have it and see if you can get consistent results there.

There's no one best company for test kits in the hobby. I ended up using Hanna for Alk and Phos, Nyos for Nitrate, and Red Sea for Ca, Mag, and Ammonia.

 

[Twitchy]

anyone have any advice?

It turns out, if you depress to the first stop, the water lines up with the top "line" in the .1 ml pipette. Still not as perfect as I like, but it does seem to put me within 20ppm using Hanna's RODI water. Which is Hanna's margin of error... If you use that line as your reference, it does drastically improve repeatability, which I find to be the most annoying part of this test.