HELP Nitrates and liquid test kits

[Fenrir]

Have been shaking the liquid test kits vigorously for around a min each do a 70% water change and my water will not move from 80 ppm HELP! The test kit doesn't expire till 2024.

[KBOzzie59]

Have you tested the source water?  Maybe it has stupid high nitrates.

[eatyourpeas]

As @Hobbit said, always a good idea to test the source water so you have a good metric.

[Guppysnail]

At any point doing any test previously did you forget to shake?  I have done this and it throws the entire bottle off. 😟

[Tanked]

On 9/23/2021 at 7:43 PM, Guppysnail said:

At any point doing any test previously did you forget to shake?  I have done this and it throws the entire bottle off. 😟

That is something that I have never considered.

[GardenStateGoldfish]

I find that banging it on the counter works better than just shaking, it meaning the bottles before it goes in the vials not after. 
 

this is also why I use test strips, those liquid tests are just to annoying and human error prone

[Fenrir]

Yeah I'm going to order some test strips. Hopefully accurate results will come of it.