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Hobbit
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I’m getting different results between my API test kit and my co-op test strips! Noooooo 😭

For me it’s the nitrite. Observe:

DADF5F32-F8CC-4119-9F28-1A287103BA06.jpeg.c7c0faa7c639dfc5a59abd813191044d.jpeg

C940F406-184C-4476-9C15-2C307B9FBDEA.jpeg.46790503273c6173ae8fb96fbfcc9bf0.jpeg

Coop test strip says 5ppm nitrites. API says 0.

I’ve done both tests three times. I shook the nitrite bottle before testing to make sure the reagent was all mixed together since I haven’t used it in a while. My other tanks show 0 nitrite on the coop test strips.

Has anyone else had problems here? Either with a false negative from API’s nitrite or a false positive from the co-op’s nitrite? Any water factors that could be messing up either test?

(Just to get this out of the way: I know there are some people that never trust test strips. You don’t have to comment just to say you never trust test strips. I gotchu already. 😉👍

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I know in the past in a video about the test strips or a cycled tank Cory has mentioned that the Api master kit is almost the best on the market with its only downside being that there are more variables where something could go wrong. Drop size/count, solution mixed properly in the bottle or the tube, too much or too little water. That's why they made strips, but those aren't perfect either on the grounds of was it in the water too long or checked too early or late after removing it. 
I've noticed a discrepancy as well on the more complicated tests in the master kit. Its always close enough where I assume they are both pretty right and its on me that it's not the same. There is differences though in the chemical make up of strip and liquid test kits that can vary. 

In your case the two test are pretty close. It might lay somewhere between the two. Sometimes I have troubles comparing the colors on the Co-op strips to the chart(especially for Ph), but from your pic it looks like it's between 1 and 5 and that's a large range to try and guess what. Split the difference? Call it 2-3? I typically trust strips just fine but also get discrepancies between Api master kit and the Co-op strips slightly with Nitrates but not Nitrites

I still have my master kit and use it sometimes but I usually use the Co-op strips because it is quick and easy. I have no reason to suspect it's not accurate because my tank is healthy.

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I want so badly to trust coop test strips. My stubbornness makes me still run api liquid as well. Mine are always similar readings on both so I’m slowly letting go of my death grip on the api liquid and enjoying my test strips. Both always return 0 nitrites. I just set up a tank with cycled media. Both liquid and strips read slight nitrites but they agreed with one another. Maybe call COOP perhaps heat exposure or a misrun from the manufacturer (totally guessing here but you get what I’m trying to say). The only difference I’ve had is ph but I’m in that weird over highest reg under the lowest high range but it’s still close to strips. 

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On 10/7/2021 at 8:59 PM, Hobbit said:

Coop test strip says 5ppm nitrites. API says 0.

Interesting. I've run into the opposite problem; COOP test strips being less sensitive than my other methods.  I'd be happier if they read high being able to dismiss slight readings.  Though now with some folks showing them reading above and mine below, the variability concerns me.  My tetra strips have been very close to my API wet kit and I like to keep them around just to be sure when things are amiss. 

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On 10/8/2021 at 7:18 AM, Maggie said:

Cycling my 5 gallon using fish food, API shows 2-4 ppm and the test strip only shows .25 ppm. 

Shortly after I joined someone here turned me to Seachem's Ammonia Alert.  They have been awesome, and I won't cycle a tank without them now.  They were incredibly responsive through my first fishless cycle, and I have a few on hand that I keep in sensitive tanks, just in case. 

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On 10/8/2021 at 8:46 AM, OnlyGenusCaps said:

Shortly after I joined someone here turned me to Seachem's Ammonia Alert.  They have been awesome, and I won't cycle a tank without them now.  They were incredibly responsive through my first fishless cycle, and I have a few on hand that I keep in sensitive tanks, just in case. 

I like min as well. I don’t rely on them solely but they are nice. 

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On 10/7/2021 at 8:32 PM, Guppysnail said:

I want so badly to trust coop test strips. My stubbornness makes me still run api liquid as well. Mine are always similar readings on both so I’m slowly letting go of my death grip on the api liquid and enjoying my test strips. Both always return 0 nitrites. I just set up a tank with cycled media. Both liquid and strips read slight nitrites but they agreed with one another. Maybe call COOP perhaps heat exposure or a misrun from the manufacturer (totally guessing here but you get what I’m trying to say). The only difference I’ve had is ph but I’m in that weird over highest reg under the lowest high range but it’s still close to strips. 

I feel this in my bones. I just started to switch to the Co-Op strips, but I like to keep a good eye on my gH and kH and I'm used to reading that in degrees of hardness instead of ppm. I know API gives you a chart for conversion and I'll usually reference it, but there's something comforting in having a *nearly* exact number instead of a range. Same with pH. I find the pH on the strips a little difficult to discern as far as color is concerned; almost as difficult as API's pH test (the 7-7.6 on the low range is nearly the same to my eye. I just try to figure out if the liquid is more green or blue and go from there). My brain tells me keep using the API Master Kit for more exact results (my safety blanket), but after dislocating my rib, my body is begging me to keep doing the strips weekly instead; those liquid tests kill my shoulder and my side, and the strips are close enough to the Master Kit for me to feel comfortable. The first time I used the Multi-Test strips on a cycling tank that I knew was in the nitrite spike phase, the Co-Op strips showed a significantly higher reading for nitrite--close to 10 ppm--than my API test did, but I think the API test only reads up to 5 ppm. I'm crediting the discrepancy to the higher range for the strips. (Don't worry, fishless cycle...)

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On 10/9/2021 at 12:07 AM, Beccs410 said:

my safety blanket

That is a perfect term for how it feels. I had to have a very serious sit down discussion with myself (sounds corny but self talk is so beneficial or negative if done poorly). Things fluctuate in the wild with rain and such and aquatic animals are extremely flexible adaptable and forgiving. Understanding then convincing myself that I don’t need exact numbers I just need it within a range was important.  If I see any ammonia or nitrite I am doing a water change immediately so knowing it’s showing and showing approximately how high is all I need for established tank. Even with api liquid if nitrate was close to my preferred threshold I did my water changes so again an exact number in these situations is not needed. Then I explained to myself I successfully kept fish happy healthy and prolific for years before testing was even a thing. So testing is something extra I’m doing to help improve their life and avoid any major calamity so again exact is not needed. I’m actually getting pretty good at just the strips and only if I suspect something or change something going for the api to verify what I am seeing on my strips. 
If I ever run into a situation like others I would probably worry or if I was cycling or altering water chemistry in any way it would be a different story. @Hobbit I do hope you keep us posted on any outcomes or findings of why this happened.  I know you will get to the bottom of this 😁

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On 10/9/2021 at 10:55 AM, Guppysnail said:

Then I explained to myself I successfully kept fish happy healthy and prolific for years before testing was even a thing. So testing is something extra I’m doing to help improve their life and avoid any major calamity so again exact is not needed

This is a good point, I had the same fish forever and most of its life the water was not tested. I shudder at what the poor thing had been through before my funds and education moved on.

Anyway the tests should make life easier for us and not turn us  paranoid . We have the luxury of learning about what our tanks are doing and maintaining around that instead of the old game of weekly big water changes and waiting for fish to tell you about problems.

Tests can never be 100% accurate what you are testing for is change I believe in using the same test every time and looking at what is moving rather you should see normal processes  increasing and decreasing in the water composition. I worry about error in my usage of API kit because it requires more human interaction than the test strips (did I shake both bottles, how many drips was that, what colour is this and so on).

 

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I have only had an issue with the test strips on the following occasions:

1. Using bottled ammonia (ammonium chloride)

2. Not holding the strip horizontal like the instructions tell you to (the color of the pad above will change the color of the pad below as the water drips) 

Other than that, I use the test strips to see the behavior of the water chemistry, not to get exact numbers as that does not really concern me. For example, seeing ph and kh decrease drastically may make me do a water change or a few water changes to move away from old tank syndrome. Or to check nitrates for plant growth. 

However, I have never had this nitrite issue. 

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@Guppysnail haha you have an awful lot of confidence in me 😄

I’m still not sure what’s going on. This is a tank that was partly cycled when I added fish. I added them along with the sponge filters that were in their outdoor tubs. Since there are pregnant platys as well as fry, I’m feeding quite a lot, so the nitrite result with the coop strips makes sense.

My other tanks show 0 nitrites on the coop strips, so I know my strips aren’t universally broken.

I’ve repeated the coop test and the API test multiple times and I’m confident I’m doing them correctly. I’ve perfected my coop strip technique—I let it sit on a towel so there’s no chance of the dyes running into each other, and I count out a minute before reading. The nitrite API test is the most straightforward, since it only has one bottle. 

I’d be a lot less confused if the numbers were different but close, but to have one test read 0 and one read not-0 is what’s concerning to me.

Honestly, my best guess is that I have a faulty nitrite test from API. When cycling my first tanks, before I had the coop strips, I almost never saw nitrite. I assumed it was because I was cycling everything so slowly. The only time I’ve ever seen nitrite with my API test is back in 2019 when I was cycling a 2.5 gallon bowl for a betta (I know, I know. I wouldn’t keep a betta in there again.) The nitrite barely registered for a few days (0.25 ppm) and then nothing. The bottle says it’s good until 2024 but maybe mine’s already gone bad. Who knows?

On a different topic: I had the seachem alerts for a few months and I really liked them, until they stopped working. 😛 I only got a month out of them before I had to start doing my own tests anyway.

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On 10/12/2021 at 2:40 PM, Hobbit said:

@Guppysnail haha you have an awful lot of confidence in me 😄

I’m still not sure what’s going on. This is a tank that was partly cycled when I added fish. I added them along with the sponge filters that were in their outdoor tubs. Since there are pregnant platys as well as fry, I’m feeding quite a lot, so the nitrite result with the coop strips makes sense.

My other tanks show 0 nitrites on the coop strips, so I know my strips aren’t universally broken.

I’ve repeated the coop test and the API test multiple times and I’m confident I’m doing them correctly. I’ve perfected my coop strip technique—I let it sit on a towel so there’s no chance of the dyes running into each other, and I count out a minute before reading. The nitrite API test is the most straightforward, since it only has one bottle. 

I’d be a lot less confused if the numbers were different but close, but to have one test read 0 and one read not-0 is what’s concerning to me.

Honestly, my best guess is that I have a faulty nitrite test from API. When cycling my first tanks, before I had the coop strips, I almost never saw nitrite. I assumed it was because I was cycling everything so slowly. The only time I’ve ever seen nitrite with my API test is back in 2019 when I was cycling a 2.5 gallon bowl for a betta (I know, I know. I wouldn’t keep a betta in there again.) The nitrite barely registered for a few days (0.25 ppm) and then nothing. The bottle says it’s good until 2024 but maybe mine’s already gone bad. Who knows?

On a different topic: I had the seachem alerts for a few months and I really liked them, until they stopped working. 😛 I only got a month out of them before I had to start doing my own tests anyway.

My vet told me api liquid is only reliable 6-8 months after opening the bottle not until expiration date. I do not know if that applies or helps🤷‍♀️

And YES I have all the confidence in the world in you 😁

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On 10/7/2021 at 9:59 PM, Hobbit said:

I’m getting different results between my API test kit and my co-op test strips! Noooooo 😭

For me it’s the nitrite. Observe:

DADF5F32-F8CC-4119-9F28-1A287103BA06.jpeg.c7c0faa7c639dfc5a59abd813191044d.jpeg

C940F406-184C-4476-9C15-2C307B9FBDEA.jpeg.46790503273c6173ae8fb96fbfcc9bf0.jpeg

Coop test strip says 5ppm nitrites. API says 0.

I’ve done both tests three times. I shook the nitrite bottle before testing to make sure the reagent was all mixed together since I haven’t used it in a while. My other tanks show 0 nitrite on the coop test strips.

Has anyone else had problems here? Either with a false negative from API’s nitrite or a false positive from the co-op’s nitrite? Any water factors that could be messing up either test?

(Just to get this out of the way: I know there are some people that never trust test strips. You don’t have to comment just to say you never trust test strips. I gotchu already. 😉👍

There's an old saying that a man with one watch always knows what time it is, but a man with two watches is never sure. I think the same is true for testing your water.

I recently used some remaining API strips, my new CO-OP strips - and when those didn't match, got out the API master kit with the tubes and bottles of reagent. NONE OF THEM MATCHED. I would say the PH was consistent, but not even that. The strips put my water at 7.2, but it's really 7.6 in my shrimp tank. The master test kit comes up with 7.6 on the regular ph test, but the higher ph test comes up with 7.4.

I just got in a reagent based API kit for GH/KH - assuming that the number of drops = number of degrees (nowhere in the instructions actually says this), my values are much lower GH than the strips suggest. Oddly enough, I think the strips are much closer to right at 180+, given how much I have to clean up hard water buildup around my house and on my tank lids, etc. The KH values were much closer, but still not a match.

It's really frustrating - coming back in after a 10 year break, wanting to be more patient and get parameters perfect and testing leaving you less sure than you were before you tested. While cycling one tank I got radically different nitrite results with the reagent test (4ppm) vs the api strips (not even .5ppm.)

 

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On 10/12/2021 at 2:44 PM, Guppysnail said:

My vet told me api liquid is only reliable 6-8 months after opening the bottle not until expiration date. I do not know if that applies or helps🤷‍♀️

Ohhh well that could be it! Haha the lab at my husband’s college is definitely using bottles older than that… 😅 Maybe only some bottles go bad, kind of a bad luck thing?

On 10/12/2021 at 3:36 PM, Jawjagrrl said:

There's an old saying that a man with one watch always knows what time it is, but a man with two watches is never sure. I think the same is true for testing your water.

This is very true. In fact when my husband was in elementary school he always wore three watches because of this. 🤣

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I have been considering the Coop test strips, this thread is actually reassuring. My only concern left is how old are the ones in stock? They say they are good 2 years from production. Has anyone ordered recently and if so what was the production date?

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I think they sell out sometimes so I would expect you’d get a fairly fresh batch. They haven’t even existed for a year yet! And if you’re like me, you’ll test so much more frequently that you’ll go through a container faster than you think. Cut the strips in half lengthwise to get double the tests. 😊

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On 10/14/2021 at 1:14 PM, Hobbit said:

Cut the strips in half lengthwise to get double the tests. 😊

Love it! And the Coop strips are already in a 200 quantity vs API at 100, so your order can last a long time. I did burn through that package of API strips pretty fast setting up three tanks this summer, they go faster than one might think!

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On 10/12/2021 at 12:44 PM, Guppysnail said:

My vet told me api liquid is only reliable 6-8 months after opening the bottle not until expiration date. I do not know if that applies or helps🤷‍♀️

And YES I have all the confidence in the world in you 😁

Interesting. 

My chem teacher told me ensure that they seal, and store in a cool dark space, and the chemicals/reagents  stay stable.

So far, they have been consistently accurate when I test pH of my vinegar control, and the nitrates are also accurate [or co-op strips also went off], and ammonia is accurate. 

Only one I can't control test for [beyond testing against Aquarium Co-op strips] is nitrite.

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