Testing

Nothing in a reef tank fails all at once. Alkalinity drifts, tips recede, and by the time it looks like a problem the coral has spent two weeks living in a moving target. Testing is how you catch the drift while it is still cheap to fix.

Everything we stock for testing is Hanna: Checker HC colorimeters for the single parameters a reef lives and dies on, handheld meters for alkalinity, calcium, phosphate, phosphorus and nitrate, pH and ORP testers, and the reagents, buffers and electrode storage solutions that keep them honest. The full range sits on the Hanna Instruments page.

What to test, and how often, depends on what you keep. A soft coral tank needs alkalinity and salinity and not much else. The moment an SPS colony goes in, alkalinity becomes a twice-weekly number, and phosphate and nitrate stop being pollutants and start being nutrients you hold in a range rather than drive to zero.

Buy the reagent with the meter. A colorimeter with no reagent left is a paperweight, and the reagent is the part that runs out.