Checker your tank to make sure your parameters are on!

[PFoster]

Are your tank parameters on?

Now you can reporduce the same level of accuracy on each and every test!
No guessing, no color matching, no nonsense.

Just easy to use test kits.

What more could you ask for?

In stock at your local store today!

Hanna Checkers



Nitrite
Alkalinity
Phosphate
Each for only $59


and

Hanna Refractometers



$200

[PFoster]

I thought we would share some pics that we took while playing with the kit here.

Here is a snap shot of the phosphate kit:



And the contents of the box



These things are crazy easy to use.
This is how it works.
The kit comes with 2 glass vials. One is the reference the other you add the reagent too and test for phosphates.
fill both vials with ml of water.
Add reagent to one of the vials and shake for 2 min



Press the power button until the tester show the above image.



Place the vial of just tank water in the checker, press the button and close the lid.
The checker will flash with dashes while it calibrates.



When you get the msg above you are ready to add the second vial containing the reagent into the checker and close the lid.

The Hanna checker will turn off after 2 min of standing idle, so mixing this vial at the start is easier than trying to mix at this step.



Hold the button for a few second until this timer starts to count down.



Unfortunately for this test our water quality in our sps system is impeccable so its not a very dramatic result but a good one none the less.

Zero phosphates even with heavy fish bio load on this system. Big thanks to the Fauna Marin Ultra Phos, Two Little Fishies carbon, giant skimmer and weekly water changes with Royal Nature salt



We did have some detectable phosphates in our LPS system. Not bad though considering we only do 50g weekly water changes and the LPS are currently being quite heavily fed with the Fauna Marin LPS food.

I think I will add a TLF 550 reactor tonight and some phosban media

[Delphinus]

What's the difference between the checker and the refractometer?

[randallino]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

What's the difference between the checker and the refractometer?

Never mind

[Delphinus]

I meant BESIDES the price but yeah.

I'm curious because before these checkers came out, I did use a lab grade model of refractometer for phosphate from Hanna, but it was a much different looking unit than the one pictured. The lab grade unit still had a precision of 0.01 but with an accuracy of plus/minus 0.04, which IIRC, is the same for the handhelds. So the nice thing about the handhelds is that they have theoretically the same functionality to the same degree but at a much smaller price.

But I'm still curious about this white model refractometer as it is not the same as what I had before. I was wondering if it might be a multitester in that it's capable of "refractometerifying" different stuff. I'm kind of guessing not, but I'm still going to ask the question nonetheless.

[PFoster]

As for the checker, yes they are similar to the unit that you have or had before and yes the price is much better. Ultimately that is what has made them so popular now.

The digital refract is specifically for salinity and it does not check any other parameters in the water such as pH, alk etc.

I use one of these for checking the salinity of our corals bed systems (we have 2 seperate systems, one for sps one for lps and softies) and for checking our fresh batches of sw as we mix up the Royal Nature salt, 50g at a time. This tool makes checking the salinity much easier and faster and its definately more accurate.

The directions say that you should clean the lens with RO/DI water after each use and we do certainly recomend this.
Someone forgot to clean it once here and i went check the salinity and the Hanna meter told me the tank was 1.035. Obviously i knew this was incorrect so I cleaned the lens off, tested again and it was 1.025
Technically you are supposed to do this with all refracts, but mine usually just got a quick wipe off on a towel..... but that would also probably expain when my refracts need replacing every few years as they turn into a ball of oxidized aluminium