1 year noob

test strips are often inaccurate. last night was a prime example. i had a whole jar of test strips for my cichlid tank (yes i know not saltwater but just wait..) i noticed one of them went from yellow to black overnight (it does that when its stressed out). tested the water with the quick strips because i dont like to use my reagent based ones on my cichlid tank (dont ask its much cheaper and my cichlid tank is easy as he77 to maintain). anyways the levels were at 0 for nitrate on the strip. everything else looked right. i decided to bust out the 5ml test vial and re-test... guess what.. 75ppm of nitrate.

Sure enough something had plugged up in my fluval 305 which I wasnt aware of (even after cleaning it last week) and it was blocking flow through a sponge in one of the chambers and was caked in detritus. Removed it all, did a water change, and 24 hours later retested with the strips still showing 0 nitrate, and retested with 5ml vial + reagents and yielded 5ppm. So at this time im fighting something awry on my cichlid tank, but the point here is USE REAGENT BASED TESTERS! Oh and be 100% sure they're not expired either. Recently figured out my Nh3 reagents are shot.

 

Hello and welcome to 3reef

 

welcome to 3 reef blanks

Steve

 

I will stop and pick up the reagent based testers. That will make me unhappy if that is the problem but it will make it better in the future for my underwater friends.

 

Hello blanks and welcome,looking forward to the pics.

 

they cost more to have, but they're worth it imo