[dennis]

I purchased a Marine Enterprises test kit for NO# awhile back at my LFS. It is for fresh or salt water. Seems very nice and the difference between the colors is not to hard to read. I wonder though, how accurate it is. I have not tested it against a know yet, I plan on it tomorrow, but wondered if anyone had experience with this type of kit. I have never seen it elsewhere. It reads in 10, 25, 50, 100 and 200. Yes, quite useless in some regards but I used it yesterday and got a reading of 25+ppm.

Not hard to believe since I dose 10ppm NO3 4x week. I am feeling that might be a tad high and that I am lacking in traces, especially due to some various stunting I am observing lately. My L. Cuba and Myrio mattergrossense are showing signs of what I believe to be NO3 deficiency but it might also be a trace issue. Also, my Bylxa all started throwing up flowers this past few days and they are very red in at the growth tips, in the center of the "rosette" and the leaves are stunted looking and smaller. the Bylxa that is more shaded my other plants or wood are not showing these signs........

Anyway,I did not mean this to be a solve my algae issues post so, any info about that test kit

 

[dennis]

well, I "tested" the test kit yesterday, although maybe not in a very scientific manner. On sunday I did ~90% water change. according to readins the day before there should have been atleast 25ppm NO3 in the tank. I then dosed in 10ppm NO3 adn tested the tank shortly after the wc. I got a "strong" 10ppm reading. I say strong as the color was slightly darker than the 10ppm chip but no where near that of the 25ppm color, which had also test "strong" I know, i know, not very scientific of me. I do know however that it read 25ppm the day before (if we ignore all that "Strong" crap) and I dosed 5ppm in the morning. I did the wc about 3 hours after lights on. If we assume there was still 25ppm in the tank after teh wc there would have been 2.5 ppm left. I dosed back 10ppm and get an approx 10ppm reading. That seems close enough for my porposes.

It is interesting though, since logically there was 25ppm in my tank before the wc, that i definately am not taking up NO3 like i used to. I am attributing that to low trace dosing. I will continue dosing 10ppmNO3 4x week but lower my PO4 from 4x 1ppm to 4x .5ppm while upping my trace dosing to 3ml flourish 3x week. it is a 10 gallon tank. I know my CO2 levels are good as I reciently started using a controller and I know everything is correct there. Consistently, ~35ppm CO2 I know i should not change more than one thing at at time but i am lower the PO4 as a temporary buffer to slow my NO3 uptake just a little, to make sure I do not bottom it out.