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Salifert co2 test kit?
- Thread starter Fishstery
- Start date
- Tagged users None
It should be good! It uses a similar visual titration method as to the Hanna CO2 test kit. I'd personally recommend the Hanna CO2 kit as I've now tested the kit itself, and have used it extensively, for over 100+ uses with great success. But this one should be good, too.
- Thread starter
- #3
I'm having a hard time with it, my drop checker was blue when the lights came on but the test kit was at 50ppm and still didn't change color. I slept in because I was up until 3am planting the tank so I didn't get to do a pH drop test yet. I turned up the co2 and just did another test and I was at 80ppm with no color change to blue, just a slightly different shade of yellow. It's frustrating.
Am I supposed to just pull the test water straight from the water column and test it immediately? Or is the test sample supposed to sit for a period of time?
Let's troubleshoot the kit first:
You're using 5mL of tank water, then adding 4 drops of CO2-1, correct?
Then, as you add CO2-2, do you gently swirl between each drop?
If you are gently swirling between each drop, how many drops of CO2 are you adding until the sample (after a gentle swirl) becomes very light pink?
Troubleshooting the drop checker:
First, remember that DCs take 1-2 hours to change. They are always, always 'delayed' by that 1-2 hour transition.
What kind of drop checker are you using?
The regular kind:
Or this over-the-tank kind?:
Answer these questions and I'll help you out!
You're using 5mL of tank water, then adding 4 drops of CO2-1, correct?
Then, as you add CO2-2, do you gently swirl between each drop?
If you are gently swirling between each drop, how many drops of CO2 are you adding until the sample (after a gentle swirl) becomes very light pink?
Troubleshooting the drop checker:
First, remember that DCs take 1-2 hours to change. They are always, always 'delayed' by that 1-2 hour transition.
What kind of drop checker are you using?
The regular kind:
Or this over-the-tank kind?:
Answer these questions and I'll help you out!
- Thread starter
- #5
Yup 5ml of tank water with 4 drops of the first reagent fluid. One drop of the second reagent fluid is equivalent to 5ppm of co2. I add one drop at a time, and gently swirl for 2 seconds per the test kit instructions. For this test specifically, you're supposed to count until the fluid turns from yellow to blue. However, even after 10+ drops, it never turns blue. It changed color to some weird grayish tone, which I had assumed any color change would probably be my test result, although the kit instructions show a sky blue color. I have a hard time believing there's over 80ppm of co2 in the water.
Here's my drop checker, normally I wouldn't even mess with it, but there's no livestock in the tank so I need to rely on other testing measures. The drop checker is placed at the bottom of the tank as well, opposite of the filter outflow.
Well I hate to say it, but I'd recommend the Hanna CO2 test kit at this point for sure.
If your DC doesn't change color within the next few hours, something is definitely wrong with the test kit.
Keep us updated!
If your DC doesn't change color within the next few hours, something is definitely wrong with the test kit.
Keep us updated!
- Thread starter
- #8
It's green now, I have the co2 on 3 hours before lights on. When I saw the drop checker was blue at 9am, I upped the BPS. The lights are due to shut off in an hour, so I suppose I may be good now since the DC is now green. I just calibrated my pH probe and tested the water, pH is 5.7. My controsoil is fresh and buffers the water to 6.5 pretty consistently, but I also did a 100% WC because I planted the tank last night, and my tap water has a pH of 7.6. The soil may not have buffered it all the way back down to 6.5 yet.
Not expired! Good until 2027.
