Colorimeter

Ok, this is probably an exercise in futility as all you need to do to keep discus happy is to change a lot of water every day and you will never have to trouble yourselves with a test kit. But this thingy strikes a chord in the little nerdy kid who has never outgrown his chemistry set.
https://iorodeo.com/products/educati...nt=12262607558
The most practical use of this colorimeter would be for people affected by colour blindness, but it would also allow everyone to evaluate more precisely the results from their water testing kit. Only fly in the ointment is that you need to have reference colorimetric curves for that kind of test kit. In the past I have tried to contact Sera and JBL to see if they would be interested, would only cost them a few bucks to buy the contraption and a negligible amount of manpower to do a colour curve, maybe while they do quality control inspector new batch of reagents. They never even used the courtesy of a reply, not the first time this happens with Sera, JBL or even Fluval Europe -their customer care deserve sacking!
Your thoughts?

It reminds me... a couple years ago I was doing some cycling experiments and wanted more precise nitrite measurements than the API test would give. The blue/purple hues on the color card are pretty bad for trying to distinguish one from the other, so I bought some sodium nitrite and made known concentrations that I could test. Then I took pictures of the test tubes in the same light/location I use for regular testing. It helped a little but a colorimeter would have been better. I didn't know you could make one for $80. The API test is fine as it is for normal water checking.

I was testing various bottled bacteria products in controlled conditions, with sterilized tanks tightly covered in plastic wrap. Interesting results but the whole subject gets so complicated I didn't post anything.

Anyone have hooks in any of the companies that make test kits? I would have thought it would have interested Sera or JBL, it would have cost them less than 100 bucks to propel their product in the digital era

Here is one. Kind of expensive though.

https://www.amazon.com/Hanna-Instrum.../dp/B00JX173MA

If you dig around the iorodeo website (it's a bit of a mess) you can download the calibration curves for API reagents so the work has already been done for you.

For other companies' reagents, it wouldn't be too hard to generate the data using some standard solutions and micropipettes.


Water testing has become a hobby in and of itself for me.

I have two of these and two of its predecessors.

Don't let the price scare you. You can sometimes find new or lightly used ones at a steep discount on eBay.

They are a real joy to use compared to hobby test kits.

Thanks, I had already looked at the Hach ones, that brand is quality guaranteed it is just their consumables are a PITA to get over here, that was the attraction of a non-proprietary one