checked my nitrate for the first time ever

and the results are in! 30ppm. a bit high,i'd like to see 10 to 20 so i did a 33% water change and that brought it down to about 20,i'll do another next week and take it from there, thanks alot to my l.f.s guy for convinvincing me to finally check something! now i have to double my water change routine!
i was wondering if there is anyone else on here that takes the same approach as me... never test anything! the best case scenario is whatever you test will be where it should be but most likely you're going to be going back to the store to buy more stuff to check other stuff that throws off the stuff you just checked wich will require further purchases of stuff to correct
<sarcasm^> kind of!

 

I rarely test any longer, but my tank is done and self sufficient – has been for years and years. If you have a new(er) tank you not only should test but you really need to test. I test every other month just to entertain myself.

…also, if you are dosing anything into your tank you really should test before hand – many people dump strontium because they “should” yet they don’t test for it ?!? crazy….just crazy.

 

this tanks been up for a year and ahalf in its current form and was moved here after a year in another house,i probably should have put that in the original post. i wouldnt want to convince anyone else to stop testing,my tank would be prettier if i tested more for sure, just thought it'd be fun to see if anyone else is "guilty" of it

 

30 ppm is not so far out there as to cause a lot of problems, dropped mine from 50 to less than 5 in about 30 days with a double handfull of chateo in my fuge and the addition of 5 mangroves which also suck up a lot of phosphates.

 

LOL @ that. Strontium tests are seriously expensive ($40+ at F&S, more than a master kit), contain fairly dangerous chemicals compared to the ones in normal test kits (Nitric acid? lol, they pack the stuff in a bottle, which is in a cardboard tube filled with acid-neutralizing packing, give you goggles and latex gloves to handle it with, and basically explain to keep it in the plastic box at all times in case you do spill it), take forever to do (15+ minutes of just doing this kit; you can't walk away from it like you can ammonia kits), and require expertise in using them (it's not just something you're going to get right the first time, and likely not the second or third).

 

thats kind of what im talking about! even the nitrate test got me a little irritated! ten drops of this...shake for 3 min...shake the other bottle for two minutes and add ten drops...shake the whole thing for 2 more minutes then walk away for five minutes and come back and try to figure out what color you have in there! all that to find out my nitrates are a little high! i could have guessed that without the test! i mean really! its 2010 we have an international space station! we're doing eye tranplants! and yet i gotta go through all that! for nitrates! how about a digital readout on a stick that i put in there for 3 seconds take out and it says where my nitrates are at? oh and i want it for under $5 u.s. as well!

 

They have a digital monitor for nitrates. They also have photometers.

 

LOL - I understand what you're saying...but you could by cheap kits that use dip stick's ! I use salifert and a master hagen test kit...kinda fun to pull it out with the kids and play mad scientist !

But your right, they are expensive and sometimes over complicated. But once you stick tens of thousands of dollars into a display tank -- kinda worth it ;-)

 

Well, the dip sticks aren't really accurate, at all, so I'd shy away from them. May as well get used to a more accurate method while you don't have corals, because when you do, you won't want a dip stick.

 

did you see the price dude? $230! for something i didnt need to check in the first place? i feel like a sap for spending the 20 bucks on the kit i have now!
and you gotta buy the regent to calibrate it i assume for another 60?
the whole world has officially gone crazy! lol