How acurate is your equipment? you may be surprised!

[Jason]

The other day I was at a friends house who Is a long time hobbyist, Last time I went there he had a beautiful 110g planted tank with amazing lush green growth, very well aquascaped and looked after.

This time when I went for a visit the planted tank was bone dry. He had been trying to get his nitrates up and the test kit he was using to moniter the nitrate level was faulty, as a consequence the nitrate levels went though the roof, he lost all his wild apisto's and the tank sucumed to a massive algae boom that he could not get under controll(or maybe had no desire too)
and decided to give-up. He wants to use the 110g for some fry I gave him that he's growing out..so thats not such a bad thing :-)

Today I was pp'ing some equipment in my laundry sink to clean it up before storage. I had 24 of those old style floating thermometers in the sink, After the pp was neutralized I notice a very, very big difference in temp readings the median temperature was in between of almost 15 degrees.
If I was using one of the low-reading ones on a heat treatment the results could have been real bad!

I now alot of people preach the merits of 2 thermometers in the tank or 2 heaters, but not many actually do that, I'm guilty of that too, spending money on extra equipment Is mostly an after thought if its not an emergency and really would you want to buy extra heaters or more discus?

So please check your heaters, test kits, meters, thermometers, meds, etc. on a regular basis! it increases your chance of avoiding a disaster and its not too time consuming.

[SSteino86]

Good input Jason.

Very true, often equipment can be faulty, especially since it's all made in friggin China. More people should use dual thermometers because I know many aquarisits who don't.

[scans]

Actually, this is a good reminder. What is the shelf life of the average test kit? Mine is about 1 year old. The results look correct, but are they? Is a test kit something that should be tossed out every 6 - 12 months?

[Timbo]

temperature monitoring is too important in discus keeping to trust to a $.99 thermometer imo (or even 14 of them:))

i use a digital thermometer (with hi/low temp alarms to let me know if a heater has failed)

http://www.thatpetplace.com/Products/KW/F74/Class/Fish+Supplies+Thermometers/T1/F55DX+0332+0051/EDP/12818/Itemdy00.aspx

[scans]

temperature monitoring is too important in discus keeping to trust to a $.99 thermometer imo (or even 14 of them:))

i use a digital thermometer (with hi/low temp alarms to let me know if a heater has failed)

http://www.thatpetplace.com/Products/KW/F74/Class/Fish+Supplies+Thermometers/T1/F55DX+0332+0051/EDP/12818/Itemdy00.aspx


That is the same one I use.. Works great.

[Westie]

Yep, I have a therm. at the top and bottom of each tank and, even that shows a 2-3 degree difference.

[Kap]

I've purchased a few of the ss hang-on thermometers and leave them sitting out at room temperature - even then they don't read the same. Can be 2-3 degrees different. With these, however, you can "adjust" the glass bulb mechanism against the background "scale" and it should work pretty good. They adjust to changes in temp quickly, too. The key is what to choose as the standard against which the others will be measured.

[Alight]

Even digital thermometers can be inaccurate. I always test my new thermometers against an analytical thermometer in my research lab. Usually, the relative scale on all thermometers is OK, it's only the absolute levels are a problem, so once you know how far off they are, you can calibrate them and use them. Read on for nitrate test kits......


I recently bought a new Aquarium Pharmaceuticals nitrate test kit (who knows how long it was on the shelf at the lfs). When I switched to using it, the first test read lower (1/3 lower) than my "in use" AP nitrate test kit was reading. However, the next day, it read much higher (twice as high as the old kit was reading)!

I went into the lab and used the quantitative balance to mix up some 20, 10 ppm, and 5 ppm nitrate, and tested the new kit against it. It was reading at least 2X to high. 5ppm nitrates were reading at 10+ ppm, 10 at 20+ and 20 at 50+.

I recalibrated this kit with my standard nitrate solution for now. Who knows how often this happens? I know the testing done in the UK on a number of kits (AP was not among them) showed quite a bit of inaccuracy of nitrate test kits. None were all that close, and some actually ready higher nitrates as lower than lower nitrates.

Using this recalibrated testing, my nitrates are where they have been, and building up as they have been since I started my tanks in Utah a year ago.

I wonder why the first test with this kit was so low, and why it switched from low to high in 24 hours? Could this be because of exposure to the air?

I've noticed that my previous AP test kits seem to get more sensitive (read higher) as they get old. Normally, a new kit will be about 20% less sensitive than the old kit is when I run out of reagents in the old kit. Maybe oxidation of one of the reagents over time? Maybe this was accelerated in my "new" kit because it was old to start with?

Of the test kits I've tried, the AP seems to be most accurate on the whole. This is the first time I've seen this big of a problem.

Is there some other method readily available to test nitrates accurately?

[cobaltblue]

Ive been having problems...so i thought, with ph. My tests have been constantly around ph 5.0 -5.5....usually always around 7. So i bought an new bottle of ph test kit, and sure enough it shows about 7.0. I tested 3 times with both bottles and the old one every time showed 5.0, the new bottle 7.0...man and i was going to add a bunch of chems to help with ph...good thing i didnt yet.

[traco]

So, Tim, (timbo) you ordered your temp gauge from the States? No one in Canada has them or was it cheaper, including shipping, taxes, etc... from the States?

Just curious with the dollar exchange right now.