new Salifert calcium test kit (1 Viewer)

[Guest]

Has anyone in the club gotten a new Salifert calcium test kit lately?? I did a couple of weeks ago and the kit seems to have some slight problems. This includes high calcium readings which seem to be due to salt mixtures. I emailed Habib at Salifert and he directed me to a thread on RC about this problem. There are quite a few people around the country having the same issue as me.

My calcium readings went from{with my old kit} ~440ppm to over 500ppm. I have done 2 10g water changes and stopped all kalk. dripping to pure ro/di water and after re setting my 120g back up with my sps I am not about to go through another tank problem like I did.

I got a second test done and the readings are incorrect with the new calcium kit. With Seachem it came back out at the normal 440ppm.

So if anyone has this new redesigned Salifert calcium test kit. BEWARE if your readings seem higher than normal for your tank and what you would think the readings should be.

 

[Guest]

what kind of test kit would you reccomend then Sue?

ive been looking for good alk and calcium test kits

 

[fishcraze]

that's suck since i'm about to running out of the Ca liq - the litlle bottle (Ca reagent#1?) that always leaks thru the cap and running out quickly. I'm looking to buy just that little bottle instead of the whole test kits since i still have a lot of the other reagents in that test kit...

 

[Cakepro]

Heck, if you can find it, I'll buy one too. I always run out of reagent #1 and have a boatload of the other liquid left. It's a scam, I tell you...

 

[KarenB]

Sue, I just got a new Salifert calcium test kit, too, and I'm having the same problems. It's showing my calcium to be way high compared to what my SeaTest kit showed. I knew my calcium couldn't possibly have risen in two days between test kits when I had added no calcium at all.

 

[Guest]

An, I still use Salifert alkalinity test kits and haven't had to buy one so I don't know if it's changed too. I will probably still use Salifert calcium if they can find out why calcium levels have skyrocketed with no addition of calcium.

They also say in this new designed calcium kit that you cannot use the old kits reagents with the new.

Karen, yes, thats exactly what caught my eye when I started dripping the Reagent -3 in and the color would not change. It seems to me and what I've researched that the true readings are about 50ppm less than what is read.

I got my second email from Habib at Salifert this morning and he asked for batch numbers from Reagent#3. I am dosing my calcium the way I was doing it before the new kit and have a feel for what this tank needs now. Hopefully this will keep me going til they either send me a new kit of figure out how to make the test more reliable.

My point in bringing this up was so if someone got a new designed calcium kit to not take the readings to heart as they are off by about 50ppm, on the high side.

 

[KarenB]

Yeah, that's about what I got, a differential of about 50 ppm. I'm glad I didn't hastily start dripping more buffer

 

[Guest]

I actually stopped dripping all kalk. into my tank. I also stopped the additions of Tropic Marin Bio-Calcium too. I know this tank has to be sucking calcium up like crazy so thats why I knew something was wrong.

I am dripping pure ro/di water and only adding TM calcium for now. Soon as my kalk. bucket finishes with this freshwater I am going back to kalkwasser too.

 

[KarenB]

And the announcer says, "We will now return you back to our originally scheduled program" LOL

 

[Guest]

Just got another interesting email from Habib at Salifert. Seems he now says that the batch number I emailed him is fine and ok. LOL, yeah right. I have also found out that Salifert just sent it's largest amount of calcium test kits to the USA ever. Darin at Captive Reefs is now having to refund over 25 test kits out of his own pocket as Salifert will not own up to this bad batch of test kits and reimburse him.

Seems the test info for this batch of kits has mysteriously disappeared at Salifert.

So the story deepens.

 

[Niko5]

So are all the new CA test kits not accurate?

 

[fishcraze]

the bad thing is it's hard to find another test kits that's as easy to use as Salifert.. i've got used to this test kit so much that i don't want to switch to another- maybe just have to subtract 50ppm from the reading

 

[Brad]

I've often wondered how accruate these test kits are anyway. How do we know the old kits were right and the new ones are bad?

It would seem little things like the size of those drops from the bottles or how exactly you measure with that little spoon woud make a meaningful difference in the results.

I've always wanted to have a MARSH meeting where 4-5 people brought water samples and everyone brought their test kits. We would then have everyone test the same water using different kits and methods. My guess is we would have some fairly meaningful differences.

 

[Guest]

Niko, I don't know if all the kits are bad, but as many people that are coming out of the woodwork saying they are experiencing the same exact thing makes me think there must be a large quantity.

Quoc, same here. I love the ease with which the Salifert kits are and I was very happy with as accurate as they seemed to be.

Brad, the reason I know that this new kit is the problem is due to my useage of the old Salifert kit and getting such stable readings and only after my changing to a new kit and absolutely nothing else I changed in my routine did I get elevated calcium readings. No different saltwater, no different ro/di water, no new additives nothing is different except the test kit.

Plus the huge number of people that are on other forums like this stating they are having the same exact high-elevated calcium readings.