Friendlily reminder..... Test and test your calibration fulids

[rocko918]

So some of my corals started to RTN. so i tested and tested again. Everything was fine..... so i figured i better do a big water change. Did a 120 gallon water change on a 300 gallon system. Ahhhh looks ok, 2 days later more rtn'ing. So i borrow an alk kit and refractometer with calibration fluid. Alk was spot on. But my salinity was through the roof at 1.035...yikes, test on my refractometer and its where i like to keep it at 1.025. using the new calibration fluid my refractometer was way off. So i threw away my 3 year old calibration fluid. Anyway i lost 50% of my Hawkins, all my Leishman red table and a few other sps just because my meter was so off.

 

 

SO TEST YOUR KITS and then TEST THEM AGAIN. Friends are good to have.

[Jan]

Good looking out. Thank you for posting this. Where can I find calibration fluid?

 

So some of my corals started to RTN. so i tested and tested again. Everything was fine..... so i figured i better do a big water change. Did a 120 gallon water change on a 300 gallon system. Ahhhh looks ok, 2 days later more rtn'ing. So i borrow an alk kit and refractometer with calibration fluid. Alk was spot on. But my salinity was through the roof at 1.035...yikes, test on my refractometer and its where i like to keep it at 1.025. using the new calibration fluid my refractometer was way off. So i threw away my 3 year old calibration fluid. Anyway i lost 50% of my Hawkins, all my Leishman red table and a few other sps just because my meter was so off.

 

 

SO TEST YOUR KITS and then TEST THEM AGAIN. Friends are good to have.

[John]

Marine Scene stocks it...not sure about others...

[rocko918]

brk has it as well.

[epleeds]

that sucks....

 

i have some red table for you.

[F&Fmgr]

So some of my corals started to RTN. so i tested and tested again. Everything was fine..... so i figured i better do a big water change. Did a 120 gallon water change on a 300 gallon system. Ahhhh looks ok, 2 days later more rtn'ing. So i borrow an alk kit and refractometer with calibration fluid. Alk was spot on. But my salinity was through the roof at 1.035...yikes, test on my refractometer and its where i like to keep it at 1.025. using the new calibration fluid my refractometer was way off. So i threw away my 3 year old calibration fluid. Anyway i lost 50% of my Hawkins, all my Leishman red table and a few other sps just because my meter was so off.

 

 

SO TEST YOUR KITS and then TEST THEM AGAIN. Friends are good to have.

 

+1 I couldn't agree more.

 

I had almost the exact same problem. I decided to buy an alk meter hanna, and man, i think all test kits can be misleading or down right wrong. if you can afford them, I would at least get the alk checker b/c i dont think there is any hobby grade test better than that. A word of advice, along with what rocko said, if things are going wrong in your tank and your test kits say everything is ok, I would have a friend test with their sets, bring it to an LFS that has abetter means of testing or can calibrate probe testers etc. my problem was more with high alkalinity. As soon as I had the checker(which I tested against a standard to w/i 5ppm) i was able to stabilize my system because i was getting consistent readings. W/O accurate readings from the testers and monitors/controllers that we use, we might as well be guessing.

 

I believe John @ BRK stocks the checkers