API Water Test Kit - Saving a few cents

[gwrace]

I was doing some experimenting this week with the API test kits I have. Each vial uses 5ml of water for each test. The Ammonia test requires 8 drops from the #1 and #2 bottles, Nitrite 5 drops and Nitrate 10 drops from each of the two bottles. I'm pretty anal about doing water testing so was spending more dollars on test kit refills.

I started doing a comparison with using half the water (2.5 ml) in each of the test vials and half of the required test kit drops. I cannot see any notable difference between the tests other than the bottles of test solution will last twice as long. Just thought I would put this out here in case others wanted to save a few bucks.

[Coffee1stLife2nd]

I know 1 of the test calls for 3 drops and couple call for 5 drops. if you do 1/2 the water how do you go about cutting one of the drops in 1/2...you would either be short a drop or over a drop...

[Tommy Saville]

That's a good idea, especially re Nitrate, which I test for very often.

[Oscarsx]

Very good info, thanks.. will have to start doing this.

- Oz

[shawnhu]

This is a great method to saving some $ on test kits, I know since I've been doing it couple years back.

Ammonia and nitrate tests can be done in 2.5 ml at 1/2 the drops required. However, ph and nitrite will be a little harder. Since ph only requires 3 drops, I use the full dosage, and I have still yet to run put of ph test solution in 2 years. It will probably expire before it's done.

Same can be done for kh and gh tests, but you will lose accuracy of the readings by 2 instead of 1. So of your gh reads 8, it could have been 7 or 8, you won't know unless you test again, but that would defeat the purpose of the method of saving solution. Those with high gh and kh can test using this method, seeing that a gh of 10 or 11 makes little difference, but low gh such as 3 or 4 would require more accurate readings for shrimp etc.

This is a great thread, and can same someone around $15 per master test kit over the span of it's life.

[BobDaniel]

I think its a good idea as long as you feel you have enough water to accurately determine the resulting color.