Whats a good saltwater test kit?
- Thread starter helpme74
- Start date
scsinet
Active Member
Any old test kit will yield any old result. The crap kits at your local Petsmart are truly that... crap.
Generally speaking, the best ones are the Salifert and the LaMotte. Middle of the road are the Seachem and FastTEST, bottom of the line are the Tetra, Aquarium Pharm., etc.
It's not that the cheap kits cannot provide an accurate result, it's just that it's very hard to do so. A good kit makes it very easy to portion the right amount of water and makes the colors, times, etc very easy to interpret.
Personally, I use the Seachem kits. They are a great balance of price and performance. My LFS uses Tetra, and literally told me to stop bringing in my water because I have better kits than they do, so I can do better testing myself. I've used FastTEST as well, but I find their color charts really difficult to interpret.
You can get the Seachem Marine Basic online. If you have a reef, I'd keep a Reef Special and Reef Calcium on hand as well.
Oh yeah... and the cheap hydrometers are fine to start with, especially if you buy your water pre-mixed, but if you really get into the hobby, put a refractometer on your short list of things to get in the near future.
Generally speaking, the best ones are the Salifert and the LaMotte. Middle of the road are the Seachem and FastTEST, bottom of the line are the Tetra, Aquarium Pharm., etc.
It's not that the cheap kits cannot provide an accurate result, it's just that it's very hard to do so. A good kit makes it very easy to portion the right amount of water and makes the colors, times, etc very easy to interpret.
Personally, I use the Seachem kits. They are a great balance of price and performance. My LFS uses Tetra, and literally told me to stop bringing in my water because I have better kits than they do, so I can do better testing myself. I've used FastTEST as well, but I find their color charts really difficult to interpret.
You can get the Seachem Marine Basic online. If you have a reef, I'd keep a Reef Special and Reef Calcium on hand as well.
Oh yeah... and the cheap hydrometers are fine to start with, especially if you buy your water pre-mixed, but if you really get into the hobby, put a refractometer on your short list of things to get in the near future.
drewdog82
Member
I would have to highly recommend Salifert as they are supposed to be highly accurate and I use them for my Calcium, and phosphate readings... I tend to use Aquarium pharm. for my PH, trates, trites, and ammonia readings. Even though they are not as accurate as Salifert, they are accurate enough to get good readings for these 4 things.
n2theblue
Member
I use aquarium pharmaceuticals "saltwater test kit" for pH, Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrates. I use the sailfert tests for Calcium and Phosphate. They are all easy enough to perform and read (although the sailfert Calcium test took a few reads through the instructions to get it right).
ryan115
Member
salifert kits are great, but you are going to have to pay for quality. I also use the aqua. phar. for my basic tests. What ever you do dont get tetra. I started with them and the nitrate test kit has 3 reagents and a small spoon ful of powder just to do the test.
Aquarium pharm. are fairly reliable, easy to do, and cheap
