Freshwater test kits vs saltwater test kits

Hello all, i have a freshwater master test kit from Aquarium Pharmaceuticals it has high and low PH, ammonia, nitrate, Nitrite, GH and KH Will ibe able to use any of these with my new saltwater tank?
Thanks

 

Some FW test kits can be usd in seawater and some can not, as some seawater kits are more desgined for seawater applications. One of these is the salt affect error and the other is often low buffer in FW. Most of this is for the Ammoina and pH test kits.

The GH will tell you much of nothing in FW kits. GH is the total amout of Calcium, Magnesium, Strontium and Barium. Since one is dealing with FW the Strontium and Barium levels are nil. Seawater does have some Strontium. So, in short, the kit is measuring the Caclium and Magnesium and expresses it all as CaCO3, which does you no good / say. Some GH kits will work in seawater, if the GH goes high enough, as the kit also allows you to measure Calcium, so GH - Calcium = Magnesium.

The KH , Nitrate and Nitrite are usualluy Ok in seawater. However, I would suggest the following which are designed around seawater

Aqaurium Systems, FasTest for pH, Ammonia, Nitrate, Nitrite. These are the best there are for these 4 parameters in seawater. I don't like their other kits.

Salifert for kH, Magnesium and Calcium are very good kits and many love them and I know the owner qutie well. Almost all of the Saifert kits are really good. There only seems to be issues with the O2 kit, which you do not need. SeaChem Labs also makes very good kits.

The thing that is good about Salifert or SeaChem as we can get the vendors to answer questions on-line if needed. Although Salifert is not a Sponsor on 3Reef I can get Habib to come here if needed. SeaChem is a Sponsor.

 

thanks for the help

thanks for the help, so in short i guess i can chuck that stuff in the garbage

 

I believe that the high ph, nitrate and ammonia test kits are both for FW and SW. I use those 3 kits and they have both FW and SW color charts. Its convienent because we have both FW and SW tanks. I also have a Seachem pH and alkalinity kit and they are hard to read, especially the pH. Aquarium systems also makes a nice phosphate kit which is easy to read. The salifert phosphate kit is very accurate but also difficult to read the differences in color change.

 

thanks for the help, so in short i guess i can chuck that stuff in the garbage

That is up to you KH, Nitrate, Nitrite should be OK. The high pH may not be OK, due to salt effect error ( table salt in seawater gives pH a false reading.), unless the kit instructions tell you how to correct. Other than that, I would need to know which pH indicator is used and I should have it on my Salt Effect Error data sheet. How much can pH be off ? As much as .5 pH units.

 

Aqauarium systems pH kits come with separate FW and SW color charts, so do their nitrate and ammonia kits.

 

I think you are confusing Aquarium Systems with Marineland Aquarium Systems. Same comnpany kinda but True AS kits are FasTest/SeaTest for seawater and the pH and Ammonia kits are not the same as the Marineland version which are not as good.