We bought a testing kit with our old tank about 3-4 years ago and now have a new tank and wondering if the testing kit is still good. I've heard people mention that they expire or don't give accurate results after awhile but if there is an expiration date listed on our kit, its not very clear. Its the liquid kind if that matters.
And if we do need to get a new testing kit, how accurate are the strips or should we just stick with the liquid kind?
Test kits generally should be replaced every 1-2 years. But if you are testing as frequently as you should be, they don't usually last much longer than that anyways. Go with the Liquid kits. I don't trust the test strip kits.
first, how will you know the cycle is complete without testing. second, if anything ever looks out of whack its good to do a test to see what the issue is and how to address it. third this was posted in saltwater so im only going to assume its for a saltwater tank which means you will need to also test mag, alk, ca, pH AT THE MINIMUM, besides the standard ammonia, nitrite, nitrate.
i was refering to FW everybody disagrees but you never hear me askin about fish ilness etc lol if your tank is old and stable you dont need to keep testing it and if your cycling with fish it takes 6 weeks before you stop doing water changes everyweek and the bacteria are grown
I'm partial with this en regards to FW, but for saltwater it's just a bad idea. You should always test your new tank once a week and once the tank has become established, perhaps once every2-3wks. Otherwise it's a recipe for disaster ;-).
trace elements are also in food you feed your fish and rocks you keep in the aquarium i always have atleast a fewshells and ironous rocks in the aquarium less perhaps in a soft acid water tank but still at least one or two just for that reason as for nitrates which plants consume as foodalong with co2 which tap water doesn't usually contain (with a few exceptions) and do you not think the water you add to account for evaporation which for me it s a gallon to a half gallon every 2-3 days that doesn't have those same trace elements ahhh how does so much water evap from fordmans tanks you ask? no covers just screens water has to interact with fresh air to shed nitrogen and absorb oxygen the standard tank hood is asthetically pleasing but provides no benefit beside light and keeping the fish in the tank.
Fordman, please take note that this post is in the SALTWATER section of the forum. The hap-hazard manner that you keep your tank, and your ignorance towards the species you choose to keep simply do not apply here. Your posts are misleading to the newer hobbyists, and your suggestions are dangerous to life in a Marine System. Since it appears that your experience is based solely on freshwater applications, I would invite you to keep your opinions to the freshwater forums. Thank you
my mistake i read the last post and assumesd it was fw my bad there is nothing ignorant about how i keep my fish my tanks are properly cycled and beautifully kept i just try to simplify the hobby you don't need to be a chemist to keep a tank you just have to start and stock it right i give sound freshwater advice and try not to scare newbies by building myself up with technicallities.
Fordman, while I understand where you are coming from I still think a test kit is a requirement when keeping & maintaining a tank. Even now, even tho my tank is stable & mature I still test my water. My tank is a little larger than yours and due to the way it's set up it is quite possible that I could have a fish die and never know it. Let's say a fish wedged itself into a piece of the driftwood, couldn't get out and died. (I know this is an extreme example) The dead fish could rot, causing an ammonia spike. Without testing how would I know the ammonia spiked? If this spiked occured only a few days after a water change I'd want to do a water change then & there. I know that this scenario is most likely an improbability but you just never know and I'd rather be safe than sorry.
thats why i have alot of shrimp they'd eat that dead fish waaaay before he could decay well i keep small fish too small fish small tanks small apartment lol i just try to set tanks up so they can handle those kinds of things by over filtering and keeping alot of plants my ideal tank is almost 90% self sufficient i like to build a bio dome thats one of the reasons i haven't gotten into salt it's too human interactive dependant where in freshwater you can just watch the fish and the environment you created take car of it self
over filtering and keeping alot of plants my ideal tank is almost 90% self sufficient i like to build a bio dome thats one of the reasons i haven't gotten into salt it's too human interactive dependant where in freshwater you can just watch the fish and the environment you created take car of it self
i cannot disagree anymore. first off filtering for the most part just removes suspended water particles, not the detritus sitting on and in the substrate and houses benificial bacteria. even with shrimp and a dead fish they wont get it all and even with plants you do not keep enough to substain a complete cycle. you would need a heavily planted 75 gallon tank with like 2 fish. granted i am making up numbers, but its something along those lines.
as for the enviroment taking care of itself my saltwater tank stays at 0ppm, i dont think you can say that about your freshwater setup.
I can't keep shrimp or snails. My loaches would have a field day! It's too bad as I really, really like shrimps, I just like my loaches better!!
I also want to do a salt water set up but I figure I have at least another year of research to do before I'll ready. I want to be successful right out of the gate.
i mean all i'm saying is the more you imitate the fishes natural environment the less you have to test thats the only ideal i push and yeah same here on salt i just dont think i even want to attempt it in anything less than a 55 gallon for which right now i dont have the money ...story of my life lol
i most deffinately can i'm going to assume you meant "i cannot disagree more" why does everybody try to pin me into being a negligent fish keeper? i never said i didn't do water changes i do 20% every 2-3 weeks at which time i vacuum most of the gravel i leave around the plants alone tho your 75 gallon with two fish quote is wicked phasecious fish feces is broken down into sedimeant which is the basis for soil in all eco systems to me there is nothing more counter productive than vacuuming your tank spotless and then adding fertilizer fish fecal matter is fertilizer for the plants anyone who disagrees is just weird and needs to take a biology class now dont try to pin me on this i'm not implying let dead fish a fecal matter fill you tank but a little here and there is good for the plants and too refer to the dead fish inquiry i had an oto cat die a couple weeks ago i didn't notice for 2 days and when i went looking for the corps all i found was a back bone the fish and shrimp had stripped it clean. Further more anybody who doubts my fish keeping ability i invite them to look at my tank and if the issue is further pressed i'll even go as far as to buy a test kit and take pictures of the results i mean do you guys see my ram in my avitar does it look like he is suffering from nitrite poisoning give me a break.
Wow, this thread has turned into a lot of talk about freshwater...
I posted in the saltwater sections, so yes, I was talking about saltwater. Another questions is regards to the tests expiring...we have the Saltwater Master Liquid Test Kit which has a stamp on the bottle that when I looked more closely started thinking it might be either when it was manufactured or when it expires. Does anyone know? Its the kind in the white bottle. Our old one that I'm almost certain is too old has some random letters and numbers and then 0805 (Aug '05?) But when we went to the LFS the stamps ended with what I'm guessing is 2007 and one early 2008. I didn't trust to ask the people there since they probably wouldn't want to admit they were selling expired tests so I'm asking you guys
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