Water Testing Made Easier

[rick s]

Here is something I learned recently.

When using the Salifert kits for tests such as Calcium, Alkalinity, and Magnesium the instructions say to add a drop, swirl for a second or two, add a drop, swirl for a second or two, etc, etc. That can be a lot of “a second or two’s.” Especially if you’re doing a round robin test of all your parameters.

I asked the owner of Salifert the following:
If I know approximately where my (Cal, Alk, Mg) level is, and I know that my water sample will change color somewhere very close to the 0.2ml point on the syringe, do I have to add a drop and swirl, add a drop and swirl all the way down from 1.0ml to my target range, or can I add one big shot from, say 1.0 down to 0.3, and then continue with the drop and swirl. He responded, “Yes” to the one big shot.

So, for the Cal, Alk, and Mg tests, you can add a lot all at once, swirl for about 10 seconds to allow it time to react, and then press on with the drop-by-drop method. It made it so much easier when I did my testing the other day.

Link to the thread:
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=857126

Just wanted to pass it on. . .

[rufio173]

The reason behind this is because all of these tests are titration based tests so that the color changes when some endpoint (usually pH change or ongoing chemical reaction has reached completion) has been reached.

The swirling every one drop is killer. :) You should probably only do this the first time you test or when you have been playing with the tank parameters quite a bit.

Peace,
John