what liquid test kit is relatively good, last a reasonable amount of time, testing results within thirty minutes, bold and/or large lettering and bright colors and is on the lower side of price range
API all the way. Ammonia and nitrite both easy and give results in 5 minutes. Nitrate is a bit of a production number, but still good and results in less than 10 minutes. pH is easy and instant. Colors for pH, nitrite, and nitrate levels are easily discernible. Color for ammonia levels of 2ppm and 4ppm are kind of ambiguous, but overall API makes good stuff.
Your individual store might be lower but with petsmarts matched online price it is $29.99 for the FW masterkit...it used to be lower if I am remembering correctly. Still the best IME.
Rather than buy a kit, I get the individual tests as you can get more tests out of each. It works out to about the same price as the master kit, maybe a few dollars more, but for the number of tests makes it worth it. I test for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate only. Ph, GH, KH testing is not done due to my belief that proper acclimation precludes the need for testing and there is not much I can do about it without resorting to a game of chemical balancing. My fish are healthy and spawn readily. I imagine that if I had SW it would be a different story.
