Quote:
Originally Posted by hooha  a couple things to consider:
- do you feed heavily? Maybe a high bioload is contributing to the higher nitrate and phosphate levels
- have you tried to see how accurate your test kits are? You can do a dilution (1:20, 1:100 etc) of one of your stock solutions to have a 'standard' nitrate and phosphate level that would fall into your test kit ranges, then see how accurate they are.... |
Emptied reagent bottles of NO3, GH, and PO4 chemicals this weekend. Using ref. standards made with distilled water. NO3 reagents are spot on at 5, 10, 20ppm and dark red 40+ppm. PO4 is problematic with color matching only at .25 and 1pmm. 2ppm is shade/tone matching but depth of color is totally off. .5ppm is just plain off. All kits used are API and I have another set of PO4 solutions Lot coded 63A0409, 64A0409 so I'm stuck with these for awhile or just pitching out the new kits. I feel like with good results at .25 and 1ppm they do have reference value knowing that the other colors are off I can still test a 1ppm ballpark.