Wtaer apramenter and test kit issues.

[phastroh]

Ok so I emailed Dr. Tim to ask him about his One and Only and explained to him my water situation in my tank.

Basically he said this. Actually this is from the email.

Hello Danny:

Let's see if I can summarize:

You have a small amount of ammonia and nitrite that you want to get to zero
You have a large amount of nitrate that you want to get lower
Also you test kits give a positive value for ammonia and nitrite from your RO water


First - I think your test kits may need replacing. You can buy some distilled water from a grocery store and test it. If the results are positive for ammonia and/or nitrite then the reagent are bad or your plastic tube is really dirty or something else is wrong. It should be zero.

Ok, adding the One & Only Live Nitrifying Bacteria will take care of the ammonia and nitrite. But first you have to make sure you have ammonia and nitrite since your test kits may be bad.

But nitrate will not come down on "its own" - it can only be removed by water changes, denitrification or with other bacteria like the ones in my product called Waste-Away.

Here is what I would recommend -

1) test the test kits with DI water from a store
2) if kits are bad, replace and test again and test tank
3) based on above decide whether to add One & Only to tank
4) no matter the above get some Waste-Away and start a program to reduce nitrate and phosphate (stop using the chemicals). I assume you have a skimmer yes?


Review this and see what you think, I see no need to tear down and start over. Try what I have recommended and try to be patience - results will not happen in a week and your tank will be fine.

regards

DrTim

So I did test the bottle of Distilled water and here are the results.

The Ammonia in the Distilled water seemed to read .5PPM the Nitrite was 0 and the Nitrates were 0.

Now I took tank water and test it along side it since I have a lot of test tubes.

My Ammonia was .150 my Nitrite was .2 and my Nitrate was .40-.50

SO how the heck could the DI water show any Ammonia at all. Even if my Ammonia test Regeant is bad it is still saying the DI water has more than my tank water so what gives.

I have 2 test kits and this is getting to be super crazy.

I thought the Nitrites in the DI water we .1 since it looked powder blue from the side but when I looked down on the tube it had a little green look with it and the 0 is greenish blue and the .1 is light blue.

I give up. I may contact Pet Solutions and ask them to help with these test kits. I had the original since 2.5 months ago and this new one for about 1 month. I doubt they will help but since I didn't know it may be bad maybe.

It is a Red Sea kit so what is the best kit around?

 

[phastroh]

Just saw a review from an advanced user and said they are not reliable and suck.

 

[little_fish]

get an API or Salfert test kits, they are best IMO. You can even have your water sent off to be professional analyzed by super precise instruments.

And i see no point in adding that bacteria stuff anyways, you have some amount of that bacteria in your tank to process the waste that you do have, if you didnt everything would be dead a long time ago.

I would highly suggest sending off some of your water for a complete test. I think i told you long ago that i thought your test kits were bad.

 

[phastroh]

1 - I am not sending the water out, too much trouble

2 - You did say that to me but you are partly right

3 - The LFS said my kit was the same numbers they had but one was a little bit off(thought it was the Nitrites)

4 - The kit seems to be sketchy only when it comes to Ammonia.

It seems to register 0 Nitrates in all the tests but the tank test

The Ammonia is what gets me though.

If there is no Ammonia how can the rest be at raised levels.

At this time I have contacted the Pet Solutions Customer Service to see what they can do.

I will wait and maybe today go get a new test kit. UGHHHHHHHH but I have to. I wanted to get some fish but now I can't. I am frozen in time for now.

I may actually send it if the new API kit I buy sucks and I can't find Salfert or I would go with that.

 

[Bifferwine]

I don't think you should do anything until you get new test kits and re-test your water. Until then, there's no way to formulate a game plan.

 

[phastroh]

Ok well right now I couldn't be more pissed off at Red Sea. I mean seriously they have had me going nut for over 2 months with the crud test they sell.

I started off using it and it has dictated everything I have done and now that i have purchased and API Test I will never buy anything else.

First of all it is 1000000000000000000 times more simple and faster than the Red Sea.

Let me first say according to this new API test kit here is how my water is

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 20
PH - 8.2-8.3

As the Red Sea did show 0 Nitrates on the RO/DI water it showed me at 50. I will say I had been adding the Instant Ocean Natural Nitrate Reducer one time a week for 3 weeks but yesterday it was still 50 so there is no way it dropped 30 in one night.

I was pretty sure the Red Sea was saying my Ammonia was 0 or no more than .125 by it had my Nitrites at .2 and that is clearly not what the API said.

Not cool Red Sea not cool. I just hope I can get my money back or even a store credit for the $60 I wasted on 2 kits.