Hagen Phosphate Test Kit

[djlen]

I wrote recently that the Phosphate test kit(Hagen) I bought was not giving me any readings. I wrote to Hagen and they sent me a new bottle of re-agent #3 in a GLASS bottle. It seems the plastic in the old #3 bottles was causing the test to fail. It works very well with the new third re-agent. So.......if you bought a kit with 3 plastic re-agent bottles the odds are that it will be useless.
Len

 

[125gJoe]

The Hagen kit I have has the #3 glass bottle.. Thanks for the info..

 

[Skittyfish]

I just bought a Hagen test kit and it has all plastic bottles, also reading nothing. Thanks for the info. I will write to them now!

 

[djlen]

Take it back to your fish store.....if they are worth a damn they will either give you back your money or trade for a kit that works(with a glass #3 re-agent).
On the other hand......if you hold onto it and write to Hagen you should have a replacement #3 within 10 days. It got back to me in less than a week.
Either way, you should let your LFS know about this as people getting a 0 reading on phosphates will be under an mistaken impression.
Len

 

[wetmanNY]

After each test, do you soak the test vial in muriatic acid and rinse it in distilled water? Otherwise, aren't you just measuring the same ol' PO4 stuck to the vial?

 

[Skittyfish]

I just do what the directions say..rinse in tapwater.

I had a problem with my NO3 reagent 3. It has all sorts of black solids in the bottle, no matter how much I shake it won't mix and won't drip out. I sent them an e-mail and within 24 hours they e-mailed back and said they would send me a new one, no charge.

 

[wetmanNY]

www.ggogle.com "phosphate test" will give you some perspective on how a rigorous PO4 test is run. By comparison, are we just fooling ourselves with these hobby kits? Are our PO4 test results any real indicator?

For one thing they aren't registering any PO4 that's organic. Bacterial action is constantly mineralizing organophosphates to orthophosphate that algae and plants can use. A constant source of PO4.

 

[djlen]

Hey wetman, I've watched the phosphates go down steadily all week from 1.50ppm to a low of .25ppm this morning as the plants are apparently using them. I added 3 drops of Fleet Enema to my 40 gallon tank this morning and it now reads 1.25ppm. This seems to be a fairly accurate way of reading PO4 levels in a tank and perhaps not as accurate as a high tech. test kit, but ok for my purposes. Are you saying that this is not a correct reading?
Len