Hanna calibration kits

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by George

Your experience is called consistent. It has nothing to do with accuracy. In order to know if your device is accurate, you have to calibrate it against a known standard. For argument's sake, your actual PO4 could be 0.2 before and 0.1 after (even though your device reports 0.04 and 0).

Yeah, I can't argue that... However, I have compared it to the color chart test kits (that I still have) and it is still more accurate than them, and that hasn't changed. And I guess based on the behavior of my tank and readings, have no reason to believe that accuracy has fallen off. So for my purposes, I consider it more than accurate enough.

The Hanna checker is just one of many tools I use to monitor and maintain my tank. The requirement for accuracy (maybe granularity is a better term) varies by water parameter. For example, I just use API for my dKH, N03 and Ca. Those test kits are accurate enough for me to maintain the desired ranges for those parameters. And I do have/had the higher granularity test kits for them as well to compare.

But with P04, I found a difference in color and growth of SPS when it reached 0.10. My color chart test kits were still reading zero at that level. So for me the Hanna checker was necessary to get the level of accuracy (or granularity) that I needed for my SPS.

Having said all that, it would be interesting (but not necessary IMO) to go out and get a calibration kit. If I start getting readings that don't make sense, for sure I will do that.