# Who to Trust?



## Bhu (7 Sep 2014)

Hi

I've always used the API test kits for my aquariums salt and freshwater. Lately I had reason to doubt them and wondered what the general feeling is out there. The only other choices I can find are Tetra or Nutrafin. 

So are Tetra and Hagen (Nutrafin) brands better? 

Until now I've had no reason to question them but after adding a mineralised filter medium my PH went up via the API test but on my digital PH tester it was same. Did a triple check with a dip test that have always been a quick constant test to confirm other test types. 

Anyhow sounds like I'm waffling now so any views on the best test kit much appreciated. Maybe there's a really great one out there that I've missed as well.

Cheers

Bhu


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## RossMartin (7 Sep 2014)

I would add another option to your poll of none!

If you read about CO2 etc the general consensus is to not use them at all!


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## Brian Murphy (7 Sep 2014)

I only use API as it was the only brand in stock at the lfs ..... tbh I rarely use test kits now, maybe to test KH and thats about it


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## Victor (7 Sep 2014)

I use Sera and JBL. They're very trustful.


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## Julian (7 Sep 2014)

Other - None. They're all crap.


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## ceg4048 (7 Sep 2014)

+1 for crap. 

...oops my bad... 

Cheers,


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## Tim Harrison (7 Sep 2014)

Not sure they are entirely necessary, or that there is much to choose between the above...but I suppose they provide reassurance and an acceptable guideline when first setting up and maturing a tank...especially if you're new to the hobby and inexperienced, or if you just like testing stuff for testings sake...


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## EnderUK (8 Sep 2014)

When I did use test kits I tried the API and the Nutrafin (Hagen) and the Nutrafin had the edge with being colourless at zero then trying to work out if the shade of pink was slightly to dark to be zero with the API. As stated I trust my plants and fish more now.


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## ltsai (8 Sep 2014)

What about gh kh ph ones? Are they reliable?


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## EnderUK (8 Sep 2014)

to a degree.... get it? degree, hardness, oh I give up.


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## ian_m (8 Sep 2014)

Not sure why you need a test kit ? What for ? Why ?

Never used one, fish multiply by millions and plants grow and attempt leave the tanks and algae, if ever, is very minor.


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## dw1305 (8 Sep 2014)

Hi all,
I'd be a fan of test kits if they worked.

The real problem is that you would either need a huge amount of time, chemical knowledge, glassware and reagents, or reagents and analytical grade kit (HPLC, AAS etc) and a person who could use it, to tell you anything useful. Some parameters are relatively straightforward to measure, things like temperature, conductivity (with a meter), but others are more problematic (pH), and a lot of chemical parameters (NO3-, CO2, O2) difficult even with £1000's of kit.

Any body who tells you anything else is being _"economical with the truth_". 

I've written some more in this post <"Aquarium management programs or apps....."> and links.

cheers Darrel


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## Bhu (8 Sep 2014)

It is for the study of the science of water chemistry and how it changes.
Also if you have really large aquariums 400litre plus then loosing a fish might not be seen so easily but a chemical change can tell you something has happened and need further investigation.


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## dw1305 (8 Sep 2014)

Hi all, 





Bhu said:


> It is for the study of the science of water chemistry and how it changes. Also if you have really large aquariums 400litre plus then loosing a fish might not be seen so easily but a chemical change can tell you something has happened and need further investigation.


 This is one of the great advantages with planted tanks (and wet & dry trickle filters), fundamentally you have higher levels of oxygen, and a "negative feedback loop" from your plants where increased nutrients lead to increased plant growth.

These factors give you a lot more resilience. This means that a filter failure, or the death of a fish, doesn't tip your tank over the edge.

This is where the <"biochemical oxygen demand (BOD)"> concept is so useful. All you need is a system where oxygen supply comfortably exceeds oxygen demand, and which reacts to increase in bioload by an increase in oxygen production. 

People who keep bare aquariums with a large bioload, and rely on microbial biological and chemical filtration, are always balanced on a knife edge, where any small increase in the bioload will lead to disaster.

Once a fish dies you are into a "positive feedback loop", where ammonia levels (NH3/NH4+) will rise and dissolved oxygen levels fall, leading to further fish death etc.

Some aquarists are really good at water management and can keep Mbuna, Discus, L. numbers etc. in bare tanks, usually by large volume daily water changes with RO water, but I need all the help I can get.

cheers Darrel


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## Martin in Holland (8 Sep 2014)

None....using brain power...(the Clive method)


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## Bhu (8 Sep 2014)

Makes sense! I do use RO water which has led to a lot of my success. But I've come here to get further success with plants. So I will be injecting co2. Hence my concerns with this new factor. I keep discus they are very happy. The plants are ok but just that not the lush growing tropics you see on some of the tanks posted here. My main concern is oxygen levels at night when the plants will be competing with the fish. I still have a lot to learn about using co2. I'm thinking that it needs to be turned on one hour before lights on but my lights will fade in over an hour and a half so I think I can start the co2 then and stop the co2 after the lights start to dim which also takes 1 1/2 hours so after 30 mins? Still not sure on that one!

I have the chemical co2 glass tank thingy to spot check the co2 but that's hours late I hear. I've read too many posts of newbies and maybe experienced peeps waking up to find some or all of their fish dead! That would defeat the object to me so I really need to learn what's best with the use of co2.

My fish are safely housed at the moment in a well filtered aquarium with low tech set up and a few plants.

I'm in the middle of setting up a 155litre aqua oak cube that I want to heavily plant. And get that lush over grow well cut back look from time to time. So I have invested in a 2kg co2 inline injection system for my external canister filter.

Maybe I should be looking at testing O2 levels and not the CO2 levels but what to trust? It's too late to trust my fish if I get up and they are dead although that's a good sign that the O2 levels are way too low or is that the CO2 levels were too high? If CO2 is high but so is the O2 is that also fatal?

It's really new territory for me although I have kept and bred fish really well and some plants ok for nearly 40 years now...

With help from this forum I'm hoping to get my plants growing lush and wild


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## ian_m (8 Sep 2014)

I think the number of people that have gassed their fish with too much CO2 is very low and usually they are attributing the fish deaths to CO2 rather than the underlying cause of poor aquarium conditions.

If you read the CO2 threads you will see most people struggle to get sufficient CO2 in their tanks, attributing the poor plant health to insufficient nutrients, not buying expensive nutrients, not using ADA products, fish eating the plants, snails easting plants, too much light, relying on test kit results etc. In fact all they need to do is read the drop checker and up the CO2 a bit and watch the plants.

When I set my CO2 tank up, with existing livestock, I just upped the CO2 rate over a couple of days, until drop checker was nicely green. I currently run my drop checker like below everyday, fish are fine, you can just see one swimming happily away in the background.


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## EnderUK (8 Sep 2014)

If you have the correct water flow in your tank then chances are you'll have the correct O2 in the tank as well even at night. Basically you need enough flow for the water at the top to be pushed down to the depths of the tank. There is a constant gas exchange at water surface if O2 in the water is low it will absorb O2 from the air, if it is high it will release it into the air). You can increase the gas exchange with two easy methods:- high flow rate as mentioned and increasing the surface area by rippling the surface with a spray bar or powerhead.

One tiny concern with a Discus tank is you have high water temeprature which shifts the balance of the exchange so less gas is and stays dissvoles in the water. This really should be an issue if you have the high water turn over and surface rippling, though you might have to pump slightly more CO2 into the tank to allow for the increase CO2 that is escaping into the air.

If you think it really is a issue then you don't really need CO2 to make those nice tanks you see, it just takes more time. Also make sure you have the plants that can deal with the high temperatures of a Discus tank. Also you'll be doing a 200L minimum water change a week if you have a 400L CO2 tank. Just a couple of things to keep in mind.

P.S I read you keep Discus sorry if I misunderstood and you're doing this in another tank.


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## dw1305 (8 Sep 2014)

Hi all,





Bhu said:


> My main concern is oxygen levels at night when the plants will be competing with the fish.


 I don't use CO2, so I like to run a venturi on my external/internal filter, or if I have a spray bar make sure that it causes some surface ripple.

I also have 2 filters (usually an Aquaball or Maxijet power-head & sponge, as well as an external) on all tanks bigger than ~60 litres.

I have a sponge pre-filter on my intake, which I clean regularly and I don't have anything like floss or fine (PPI30) sponge, that might clog and impede flow in the filter body. I have Eheim "coco-pops", sintered glass rings, PPI10 sponge, floating cell media, hydroleca or alfagrog in the filter, and no more than 2/3 full.

Some CO2 users have an air pump time switched to come on immediately the lights go off, aimed at adding oxygen and out-gassing any residual CO2.

Generally plants and fish death is another area where a lot of comments made come from people who are understandably upset, but don't fully understand what has happened.

If you have a planted tank and suffer from fish death due to low oxygen it will always happen

at night (no oxygen production from photosynthesis, and the plants respiring, make them net oxygen consumers)

often in the summer when the tank is warmer than normal (gases are less soluble at higher temperatures)

and often when we have had a sudden drop in atmospheric pressure (gases are less soluble at lower atmospheric pressure).
The simple conclusion is that the plants have used the oxygen, and this has caused fish death, and this is true, but the fact people are missing is that if they *hadn't had the plants their fish would already have died*. The oxygen usage by the plants respiration is the final straw, but it is a very minor factor in the bigger picture.

At the end of the photoperiod your plants will have

fully saturated the water with dissolved oxygen, 

they will have transported oxygen into the substrate via their roots (this is particularly true of emergent plants),  

they will have stored oxygen in their tissues. 

They will also have removed NH4+/NO2/NO3 directly from the water column and from the substrate (biological nitrification is an oxygen intensive process).
Plants will provide a much larger area for microbial colonisation both on their leaves and, more importantly, in their rhizosphere in the substrate.
All of these factors mean that, even at night, planted aquariums usually have higher oxygen levels than un-planted aquariums. 





EnderUK said:


> If you think it really is a issue then you don't really need CO2 to make those nice tanks you see, it just takes more time.


 I'm not a CO2 user, mainly because I can find quite enough ways to kill my fish without adding any extra ones. I like my plants to grow fairly slowly, so I run fairly nutrient poor, but even so I still have very heavily planted aquariums.

Have a look at Troi's tutorial <"The soil substrate....."> for a way of getting more growth without CO2, and <"Maxing CO2 in low tech...."> for some pictures and discussion of tank architecture.

cheers Darrel


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## kirk (8 Sep 2014)

I think test kits are brilliant.....................
..............................for wasting your well earnt cash.


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## BigTom (8 Sep 2014)

A1 post Darrel.


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## parotet (8 Sep 2014)

Be careful, if you use test kits you will end up adding bunsonium to your tank 

Sorry, I couln't resist 

Jordi


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## pepedopolous (8 Sep 2014)

Voted other. My only test kit is JBL for KH. I used a Seneye but stopped after the first slide ran out. Now use it only for PAR.


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## Edvet (8 Sep 2014)

I have worked closely together with a big discus breeder/seller. Large waterchanges was all he did, and stil does now he is in America. And healthy feeding.
Luckily if you want to keep plants you can also do large waterchanges. If you want to breed succesfully in a planted tank that will be tougher, the eggs need low osmotic values to be fertilized solidly, and a planted tank needs ferts to keep the plants happy.
But the discus can adjust to most watervalues, exept they prefer a bit higher temperatures.
At that discus setup we never did ANY tests. Good filtration and large waterchanges, that is the secret.


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