New To Reefing

FishBitch

Member
Feb 3, 2016
12
12
Reef Test Kits?
Hi guys,

Just wanted some feed back on what test kits ill need to acquire as my reef matures?

I just started cycling my tank about a week ago and was wondering what I will need, and whats the important ones I should get first and then what comes later?

Cheers for the help!
Michael
 

Col81

Member
Feb 6, 2016
69
21
Airlie beach
Hi guys,

Just wanted some feed back on what test kits ill need to acquire as my reef matures?

I just started cycling my tank about a week ago and was wondering what I will need, and whats the important ones I should get first and then what comes later?

Cheers for the help!
Michael
I use salifert test kits.... there are API:banghead
Good start for you will be ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, ph, because atm the life on your live rock is dead or still dying off which will cause ammonia...... etc etc... good indicator is when your starting to grow algae.... add some clean up crew. Get yourself a refractometer to check salinity.
 
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IJG3145

Member
Oct 27, 2015
442
162
South Gippsland
First piece of advice is buy what you need, not what you can afford. As Magic said, avoid all API test kits, they have no place in this hobby. While reasonable for freshwater use, their marine range is worse than useless and will cause grief.

I'll number them in order (based on my opinion) and give some recommendations, most of which are agreed as standard in this hobby. Note that those above the line, you really should have had prior to getting your tank wet.

1. Refractometer designed to test sea water (not just salt water) in the minimum range of 1.000 to 1.050 specific gravity and with automatic temperature control (ACT). It needs to be properly calibrated so you'll need a calibration medium too. This measures the salinity (salt content) of your water - the most single important factor in success or failure of your tank. It is also useful when (not if) you need to treat for marine ich as the best treatment is hyposalinity and an accurate refractometer is critical to that process too.

2. Reliable thermometer. Avoid anything that stays in the tank like hang on units as they all eventually break/fail and pollute the tank. *Note most PH pens have built in thermometer.

3. PH test kit, I prefer a PH pen (cheap on ebay) as they give you a digital reading, come with a digital thermometer and above all don't require you to decide what shade of colour your water is. if you buy a kit instead of a digital tester, avoid colour comparison types like API and at least buy a good titration kit where there is an obvious change of colour as opposed to guessing shades of colour.

PH pens also need to be calibrated from time to time but it's really easy.

ALL OF THESE YOU SHOULD HAVE ALREADY OR YOU ARE FLYING BLIND IN A CRIPPLED CRAFT.

4. Next you need to be able to monitor your cycle. You need a good ammonia test kit and nitrate test kit. I and many others recommend Salifert (titrate kits). Many will tell you you need to test for nitrites too but it's not really necessary and cycling is the only time you ever might want to test nitrites. At this point you NEED to understand the nitrate & bacteria cycle. If you don't, study it ASAP but essentially:

Ammonia (toxic) becomes nitrites (not as toxic), that in turn become nitrates which are non toxic but feed algae blooms etc. Some but not all nitrates will turn to gas and exit the aquarium. These are the small rising bubbles you will see in your tank once it is mature.

5. Tests for Calcium (Ca), Water Alkilinity/Hardness (dKH), Phosphates (PO4 or PO3). Without doubt, the ONLY reliable way to measure phosphates is with a lab grade test kit. Most use Phosphate 'eggs' from Hanna Australia, they sell direct to hobbyists.
hanna.jpeg
HI 713

Checker®HC Handheld Colorimeter - Phosphate Low Range


There is now some serious discussion that we should check for phosphorus rather than phosphates but that's an advanced chemistry discussion.

Salifert test kits for Ca & dKH do a good job. Some people are moving to Hanna checkers for this too but you can decide in a year or two.

Lastly (debatable) you will at some point want to check for magnesium as it effects PH among other things but you probably don't need that right now. Some also test for strontium, iodine, etc but these are minor trace elements at best and a good water change schedule is all you need to keep these right. In fact a good water change routine will keep may things for drifting out of whack.

THE GOLDEN RULE IS DO NOT ADD ANYTHING YOU ARE UNABLE TO TEST FOR which brings us right back to why you need ph pen, refractometer, etc, right now. :)


 
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Savage Henry

Member
Feb 2, 2015
653
254
If your 'initial' finances for your marine tank are limited, I would just get a Carbonate Hardness testkit and a Nitrate testkit.

If you have the patience to allow your tank to cycle over a month or longer, you won't need an ammonia or nitrite test kit. But after say six weeks, start testing your nitrates.

If you then add items progressively, and give a few or several weeks for the tank to adjust between each addition, your nitrate test kit will be adequate enough to indicate how your tank is handling the new additions.

At this stage an ammonia test kit would be useful if you are going to add more items quickly.

Phosphate test kits can wait until later and you won't even need to test Ph if you keep your carbonate hardness within the right range.

I only ever use my ammonia and nitrite test kits if I think there's something wrong with the tank, but I have not seen any ammonia or nitrite. So, my ammonia and nitrite were only really useful when cycling a tank, but really I could have just given the tank adequate time to cycle and not needed to measure these values.
 

Savage Henry

Member
Feb 2, 2015
653
254
I should add that I am assuming (probably not wisely) that you will add items progressively and give the tank time to settle in. That is, add a piece of live rock one day, then wait a couple of weeks or more before adding another item. Add a single fish or two, then wait... If you dump in 20kg of live rock all at once, then you will need to wait longer and you need to be aware that such an addition will cause a cycle in itself.

I would also suggest that if you do add a lot of things at once, then increase your water changes substantially and more frequently for a month or two.
 

IJG3145

Member
Oct 27, 2015
442
162
South Gippsland
Not being able to tyest PH, Ammonia, etc is very dangerous. Particularly when something goes wrong at night. Also PH is not controlled by alkalinity, there are several factors at work with PH including heat, light, magnesium, etc etc.

I'm afraid I couldn't disagree with you more.
 

Savage Henry

Member
Feb 2, 2015
653
254
On ammonia, as I said if you take your time and measure the outcome of cycling the production of nitrate should be adequate. I agree with you otherwise on this though, that having the ability to measure ammonia is well worth having.

I would like to know though wether anyone has ever actually measured significant levels of ammonia outside of the cycle and if they have, whether this was due to a major event like a tank crash where the tank was beyond recovery anyway, i.e. corals were half dead and any reefer would have known that the tank would consequently have high ammonia.

I think you're having yourself on if you think anything else is going to affect your pH to a significant degree more than keeping an adequate level of carbonate hardness. On this one, I am sure there are a lot of reefers who will agree with me that they don't bother testing for pH at all.
 

riley

Member
Apr 25, 2013
371
112
GYMEA BAY
dont bother buying ammonia or nitrite test as you prob going to use them like 4 time then keep in a cabnet for 5 years then bin them.... i would instead just measure nitrate when you start to get some wait a week then go up to your LFS to test your ammonia & nitrite(its Free in most) if 0 add a fish etc

id buy Nitrate & Phos tests to start then buy the rest later. . id recommand the sal for the nitrate and a hanna egg for the phos.

Alk, Cal and Mag test kits i wouldn't worry about til you get into not wanting to do water changes or start adding some lps/sps. your water change should be enof for fish and softies not needing to make adjustment to the water chemistry.


Not being able to tyest PH, Ammonia, etc is very dangerous. Particularly when something goes wrong at night. Also PH is not controlled by alkalinity, there are several factors at work with PH including heat, light, magnesium, etc etc.

I'm afraid I couldn't disagree with you more.
There is a correlation between ph and Alkalinity. but yes there are other factors that affect Ph, O2 or water pressure for example . saying that there really isnt any reason to test for it. As a general assumption if your alk is in the correct range and you have enof surface agitation your ph will be were you want it to be. ph swing also makes testing ph a very unreliable test unless you go a prob and can output a graph. Waste of some good $$$ if you ask me.
 

IJG3145

Member
Oct 27, 2015
442
162
South Gippsland
dont bother buying ammonia or nitrite test as you prob going to use them like 4 time then keep in a cabnet for 5 years then bin them.... i would instead just measure nitrate when you start to get some wait a week then go up to your LFS to test your ammonia & nitrite(its Free in most) if 0 add a fish etc

id buy Nitrate & Phos tests to start then buy the rest later. . id recommand the sal for the nitrate and a hanna egg for the phos.

Alk, Cal and Mag test kits i wouldn't worry about til you get into not wanting to do water changes or start adding some lps/sps. your water change should be enof for fish and softies not needing to make adjustment to the water chemistry.




There is a correlation between ph and Alkalinity. but yes there are other factors that affect Ph, O2 or water pressure for example . saying that there really isnt any reason to test for it. As a general assumption if your alk is in the correct range and you have enof surface agitation your ph will be were you want it to be. ph swing also makes testing ph a very unreliable test unless you go a prob and can output a graph. Waste of some good $$$ if you ask me.
That is simply not accurate - basic chemistry. I've seen many tanks where alk etc were correct but PH wasn't.There's a huge range of factors that effect PH, including the rock and substrate, salt used, dosing regimes, food used, light, temperature, oxygenation, etc. I could name dozens. To say it's not necessary to test is very misinformed and such advice should not be given to people entering the hobby. When I worked in the aquarium trade, an aquarium owner brought up this very issue at a society meeting. All his parameters were fine - except PH.

After a week where several of us gathered after hours to work it out, the actual rock was the culprit. It should have been inert but it wasn't. How did he know his ph wasn't right? Because he tested it. Another time the magnesium being dosed was of inferior grade and put PH out of whack. Do you know how often Sydney Aquarium test PH manually, even though it's electronically monitored? Every 12 hours.

AS for surface agitation, that's largely irrelevent for anyone running a sump and skimmer. I agree it's a good idea in terms of as a redundancy but most gas exchange happens at the skimmer, something in the order of 32 million times more than happens at the water surface. Water traveling over sump baffles is in the order of several million times more efficient that agitating the surface. These are proven scientific facts. Why on earth do you think every aquarium controller on the market, tests PH by the way?

I recommend people not chase ph per se' but to deiberately not test it is begging for disaster in my view.
 

Savage Henry

Member
Feb 2, 2015
653
254
pH testing is a throw back to freshwater aquaria where tanks range from soft water zero carbonate systems to extreme Tanganyikan systems with hardness levels much greater than marine. Speak to aquarist keeping the latter and I'll bet they'll tell you they place more importance on KH and GH rather than pH.

Acidity in your tank is mopped up by carbonates. You exhaust your carbonate you exhaust your tanks ability to do so. That's the chemistry that matters most. It's far better to know the buffering capacity of your tank than the actual pH.

I know more than a teeny bit about chemistry, but even if I didn't, I still say that carbonate hardness is what's important. When I first gotten into marines, I would have agreed with the thought that pH is the more important parameter to measure, but through actual practice, and most importantly through discussions with fellow reefers and what they have suggested, carbonate hardness testing is the way to go.
 

riley

Member
Apr 25, 2013
371
112
GYMEA BAY
That is simply not accurate - basic chemistry..
not trying to be rude but what part of "basic chemistry" have i mistaken.

the 3 main factors that affect ph in aquarium are carbonic acid, alkalinity, oxygenation. read the article and you should come to the conclusion that testing ph is not needed as you can preemptively create an environment were by the ph will not drop to an undesirable level, by controlling Alk, O2 and some degree Co2 / H2CO3

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/5/chemistry
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-05/rhf/#4

your tank also maintains ph to some degree. as ph/acidity reduces with the introduction of carbonic acid, calcium carbonate(rocks/substrate/coral skeletons/snail shells etc) becomes sociable to the surrounding water increasing ph.(works with the same principles of a calcium reactor)


i feel that telling some 1 to monitor ph ok fine but what would they do with the results

so i test;

day 1 - 8.2 at 5pm
day 3 - 7.9 at 7pm
day 6 - 7.7 at 7pm

what would a person conclude from the findings? there is a downward trend?

alk has remained constant with no change over the week.

if i was a newbie id go down to my LFS and say every thing is ok except my ph is at 7.7 how do i raise my ph then buy a buffer and add a dose to bring a ph of 7.7 to 8.2.

which can create problem for the tank and likely not needed, the tank was likely following the ph swing as depicted below

awww_reef2reef_com_attachments_screen_shot_2014_11_03_at_3_53_25_pm_jpg_191917__.jpg



yes i agree the ph monitoring is useful as you can gragh ph over time and have a more reliable data to base your conclusions on but spot testing ph really has no place in this hobby.

the ocean has a ph range of 7.2 to 8.4 so why should it be concerned in the fish tank? i believe its impossible to have correct alk level and have your ph below 7.4 based on my understanding.

i also suspect sydney aquarium use manual testing to conclude the ph probs are accurate or need replacing and redundancy, testing every 12 hours at the same time every day would be reliable data but in most cases an individual hobbyist cant do this. i could be wrong but dont they pump in there water which would have different chemistry dynamics to a closed loop system like a fish tank which makes discussing sydney aquarium redundant.

at the end of the day i and a lot of other reefers have kept successful reef tanks without ever needing to pull out a ph test kit. i have kept 2 reef tanks for the last 9-10 years without it.
 
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Savage Henry

Member
Feb 2, 2015
653
254
Hi all, I don't want to get anyone off-side, especially IJG3145 as his posts have been very informative (and even if I didn't think they were, it' still another valuable opinion to throw in with the mix). I wouldn't want this thread to become like that other forum so I say test as you wish, but keep an open mind.

I think the original poster will see that in this hobby there is always many different opinion on what is best and that everyone starts out making little mistakes and gains knowledge along the way from their own mistakes as well as from advice from fellow reefers.

FishBitch, you may buy testkits and many other things the LFS will sell you that you may use once and never again, or you may use them a lot.
 

IJG3145

Member
Oct 27, 2015
442
162
South Gippsland
not trying to be rude but what part of "basic chemistry" have i mistaken.

the 3 main factors that affect ph in aquarium are carbonic acid, alkalinity, oxygenation. read the article and you should come to the conclusion that testing ph is not needed as you can preemptively create an environment were by the ph will not drop to an undesirable level, by controlling Alk, O2 and some degree Co2 / H2CO3

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/5/chemistry
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-05/rhf/#4

your tank also maintains ph to some degree. as ph/acidity reduces with the introduction of carbonic acid, calcium carbonate(rocks/substrate/coral skeletons/snail shells etc) becomes sociable to the surrounding water increasing ph.(works with the same principles of a calcium reactor)

Botttom line is you are telling newbies not to check ph, even though major public aquariums do it and thats silly.at would a person conclude from the findings? there is a downward trend?

alk has remained constant with no change over the week.

if i was a newbie id go down to my LFS and say every thing is ok except my ph is at 7.7 how do i raise my ph then buy a buffer and add a dose to bring a ph of 7.7 to 8.2.

which can create problem for the tank and likely not needed, the tank was likely following the ph swing as depicted below

View attachment 53313


yes i agree the ph monitoring is useful as you can gragh ph over time and have a more reliable data to base your conclusions on but spot testing ph really has no place in this hobby.

the ocean has a ph range of 7.2 to 8.4 so why should it be concerned in the fish tank? i believe its impossible to have correct alk level and have your ph below 7.4 based on my understanding.

i also suspect sydney aquarium use manual testing to conclude the ph probs are accurate or need replacing and redundancy, testing every 12 hours at the same time every day would be reliable data but in most cases an individual hobbyist cant do this. i could be wrong but dont they pump in there water which would have different chemistry dynamics to a closed loop system like a fish tank which makes discussing sydney aquarium redundant.

at the end of the day i and a lot of other reefers have kept successful reef tanks without ever needing to pull out a ph test kit. i have kept 2 reef tanks for the last 9-10 years without it.
 

IJG3145

Member
Oct 27, 2015
442
162
South Gippsland
I could drop vinegar in your tank and alk would be fine if you checked it. PH wouldn't. You are advising newbies not to check ph which is just plain bad advice. I really can't be bothered scouring the net to put up bits and pieces which are all good and well - in thee theoretical world. Even public aquariums check ph manually.

Are you prepared to pay for any damage caused by your advice???
 

IJG3145

Member
Oct 27, 2015
442
162
South Gippsland
My mate's son is a marine biologist attached to 'Aquarium des Lagons' in Noumea. His response when I mentioned not checking ph was, & I quote " misguided". I don't see this conversation being productive...
 

riley

Member
Apr 25, 2013
371
112
GYMEA BAY
he isnt dosing vinegar and if he is he should be well aware of the possible affects of dosing prior to use. the same can be said for calcium reactors, vinigar, vodka, sugar, bio-pellets and pretty much any other carbon based additive. on the other hand there is very little risk as it only drop ph temporally as long as its in small quality's which would be recommenced by most .


a priest said god exist therefore it must. why does he believe it is misguided based on what evidence?.

all i will be saying, dont wanna go off topic any further.
 
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Savage Henry

Member
Feb 2, 2015
653
254
My mate's son is a marine biologist attached to 'Aquarium des Lagons' in Noumea. His response when I mentioned not checking ph was, & I quote " misguided". I don't see this conversation being productive...
and, what did he say about maintaining and checking carbonate hardness? You did ask him didn't you?

It would be great to hear what an expert has to say. It might even convince me to check for pH.

I wouldn't worry everyone by referring to legal liability otherwise no one would give an opinion online.
 
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Savage Henry

Member
Feb 2, 2015
653
254
Hmmm, perhaps thereefuge could have an articles page where thereefuge interviews experts from different fields....
 
Sep 24, 2013
367
280
Palm Beach
IMO, buying a pH test kit is wasteful but monitoring pH can be gold.
Given that a decent pH pen is around $30, I would buy it, rather than a laborious test kit.
Alternatively, a monitor that keeps history so you can better understand the patterns, over time.

In most cases, specially if the system setup is properly done and it remains the same, pH monitoring won't tell you anything other than it is ok.

Monitoring pH become interesting when problems occur, mainly when the system setup changes.

I can remember a handful of occasions where monitoring pH was handy:
- Moved houses and the new room was to high in Co2.
- Started dosing Vinegar and the dosages were too high.
- Removed/add macro algae.
- Comparing 24/7 vs. reverse light cycle refugium.
- Went from DSB to shallow sand bed and bare bottom.
- Moved the tank near a window and the light cycle increased. pH told me algae was waking up too soon.
- Lowered alk to 7dKh to stop burn tips, due to organic carbon dosing.

I all these occasions, being able to understand the pH pattern helped me to make a more informed decision.