Test kit mishap?

[kreach]

After the reccomendations I received on this board, I went out and purchased a test kit for Calicum, KH/Alk and Nitrate. The new test kits are Salifert kits.
I tested my water tonight, did the tests twice to be sure... and these are the results I got with the new kits.
Nitrate - 100+ ppm
Calcium - 500+ ppm
KH - 16.0+
Alk - 5.71+
Everything was off the charts!!!!
I used my other test kits (not Salifert) to test my water for the other parameters and got these:
Ammonia - 0.0
Nitrite - 0.0
Phosphate - 0.5
PH - 8.4
Salinity - 1.025
A little high on phosphates (working on that) but ammonia, nitrite, PH and salinity are normal.
We are having NO problems with our tank at this point. All the corals are happy and open, no unusual amount of algae, fish are doing fine.
If our nitrate, calcium and KH/Alk levels were really that high, shouldn't we be having some sort of problem with the tank?

 

[spsfreak100]

If you read the Salifer directions and did exactly as stated, I doubt your tests are wrong. Unless of coarse, you bought an old test kit which was sitting around your LFS or online retailer for over a year and has expired (it should say an expiring date somewhere on the salifert package).
FWIW,
Your other test kit could possibly be very inaccurate. What was your "other" test kit? What brand was it?
Graham

 

[kreach]

I bought the Salifert kits from saltwaterfish.com... can't find any expiration date on them, but surely SFW.com wouldn't carry expired kits... I would hope anyway.
Brands on other kits are as follows:
PH - Tropic Marin
Phosphate - Aquarium Systems
Ammonia - Aquarium Pharmaceuticals
Nitrite - Aquarium Pharmaceuticals
If the kits are right, then I'll of course do whatever I need to to fix the levels... but like I said, we are having no problems in the tank. It just doesn't make sense to me that the water parameters could be THAT off and all the tank inhabitants still be doing just fine.

 

[kreach]

bump

 

[eng50]

First things first, start simple...
Either get other test kits to confirm your readings or take the easier route and take about 1/2 cup of water in a clean container to a LFS and have them test it for all the above tests.
When your parameters are "tested" and read way out there, and all is doing well in the tank, suspect the tests!
If results are truly the same as you got, then make very GRADUAL changes, because your tank must have adjusted to those values and to shock it back to what are "correct" values could be asking for trouble.
Please confirm your test results with another source before you do ANYTHING!! then repost those results.
Always start simple and go with the basics first! Good luck and hope your test kits are just a bit off..
Bill

 

[nm reef]

Nitrate - 100+ ppm
Calcium - 500+ ppm
KH - 16.0+
Alk - 5.71+
Your tests aren't really all that bad except for the nitrate which could be brought under control via adaquate filtration and/or water changes...possibly even via reduced feedings.
Are you supplimenting for calcium and alkalinity? If so what do you use and how much?
Myself I've come to depend on the reliability and accuracy of salifert tests and use them for all tests performed on my systems.

 

[searcher]

On the Salifert Nitrate test, if you use the low range test you need to divide your results by ten. So maybe your nitrates are only 10.

 

[nm reef]

Very good point searcher!!!! Failed to consider that possibility myself!!

 

[kreach]

eng50 - I was already planning on taking some water up to the LFS and having them test it just to confirm all this. I'd rather the test kits be off than my tank, but at the same time, I spent almost $50 on those 3 new test kits... would hate to see that money go to waste.
NM reef - As far as the nitrates go, we already do a 20% water change about every 2-3 weeks. The tank's filtration is listed in my signature (we were told when the tank was set up that our current filtration would run a tank twice the size of the one we have). And we feed once a day, 3 frozen food cubes soaked in 2 drops of Kent's Garlic Extreme, 2 drops of Kent's Marine C and a splash of Kent's Zoe. We have 13 fish, also listed in signature.
As far as the calcium/alk goes, we ran out of our calcium supplement about 4 days ago, so the tank hasn't had any calcium added in that time. But when we were dosing, we were using the 2 Part Reef Pure Calx-Max system. One part was calcium, the other was a buffer. We took the reccomended dosage on the bottle and divided it by three. So 3 days a week, the tank got 1/3 of the dosage (1 full dose/week).

 

[kreach]

searcher - I wish that were the case... however, I used the midrange test on the nitrates, not the lowrange.

 

[eng50]

I would hope that if the kits are indeed bad that SWF would refund you or replace them!!
Good luck..
Bill