Best brand of test kits

[MattM]

Excellent info! Thanks!

 

[ToeCutter]

Thanks very much to MattM for that post. This was exactly the kind of thing I was looking for when I started buying test kits.

I want to add a couple things from my experience. After reading that post, I bought Tropic Marin kits for Ammonia, Nitrite-Nitrate, and Ca. I also have test kits from Salifert and Red Sea.

First, I agree that the NO2/NO3 kit from Tropic Marin is the best. It was easier to test and read than Salifert, plus you get 2 kits in 1.

The NH3 test, though... well, when I do it, the last reagant is brown colored, so the test always comes out looks brown, instead of the green/yellow that it's supposed to be, so this test was useless to me. Did I get a bad kit or something?

And as for the Calcium test, I give salifert the nod... they were similar tests, but the color change for salifert was pink to blue, Tropic Marin was very-very-light blue to clear <- much harder to distinguish.

Well, that's my 2 cents for now. Were there any great Lamotte kits that are borderline worth paying extra?

Can you give us any more detail about which kits you liked/ didn't like any way?

 

[XXX]

Matt,

Did you try the LaMotte test for copper?
I found it quite easy to read. Is the Fas Test as easy to seperate color differences? Hopefully I will never need to use mine again!

 

[MattM]

No, we didn't get ahold of the LaMotte Copper. Since copper is not a usual test, we didn't invest as much time or energy into testing them. The colors on the FasTest are pretty easy to read. As I mentioned, the only potential problem is that it is in shades of yellow, so you can get a very slight false high reading if your water is quite yellow - like you've never ever used carbon.