Test Kit's

[TomSeaman]

Can anyone Recomend a good (Simple) Saltwater Test Kit.

Tom

[captivereefs]

What exactly are you testing for? Alot of people like saliferts; these are a good test kit. I think Seachem test kits are better. Thats just my opinion though.

[Reefland]

I'll vote for Salifert or LaMotte (I use Salifert but hear great things about LaMotte). The Salifert test kits are easy to use and accurate as far as I know although I have recently heard that the Boron and Iodine kits are not accurate.

[captivereefs]

The Seachem kits also come with a regent standard to verify the kits acuracy; This is why i like them. No other test kit offers this.

[the_blue_tuna]

I like to use Salifert kits myself. Try to avoid any kits that use test strips . I have found that type of test not as accurate as a kit that uses reagents .

[Ninong]

I'm using LaMotte test kits for both Calcium and Alkalinity and I like their new Direct Reading Titrator. I highly recommend them.

I did have a problem with a Salifert boron test kit recently but it turned out that the distributor provided the online vendor with a test kit that was 6 years old! Salifert is looking into it now to try to figure out which distributor supplied the vendor with that kit. There may (or may not) be an issue with Salifert's iodine (iodide/iodate) test kits. Salifert has promised to address certain questions that I have about it within the next couple of days. I am using most of the other test kits that Salifert makes and I believe that the results are reliable.

My major complaint with test kits is that they don't provide an expiration date on them. I have been assured by Habib Sekha, President of Salifert, that they are addressing that concern right now. Here is his response dated 10/14/03:

We have started with putting expiration dates on the kits. Several of them have it now and all of them should have it within a few weeks.

We will also have check solutions available for most parameters.

[captivereefs]

Hach and Lamotte are by far the best. Extremely exspensive but excellent kits. I actually think that Seachem is as good or better than Salifert. And the sea chem kits come with a liquid regant standard to verify the kits accuracy. There is also a test kit on the marekt made by salifert for another company. These are the Marine Enterprises kwik-kits.