How accurate are the Tetra Test Strips?

[FrozenFins]

Hey,

I have just tested my tap water my readings came out with

0 Chlorine

0 Nitrites

0 Nitrates

Should I trust this reading? Does this mean i dont need water conditioner?

[KBOzzie59]

Are you on a well or water utility?

[DaveSamsell]

Here is an interesting video on the test strips.     BTW, I have well/ground water with zero chlorine as well, but I still use water conditioner for any heavy metals that may be present.  

 

 

[FrozenFins]

1 hour ago, KBOzzie59 said:

Are you on a well or water utility?

Water utility

[Alec2cool]

From my personal experience, they are not. I used test strips for the first 3 months back into the hobby in January. I always tested 0 nitrite and 0 nitrate, every single time. I found it odd as I suspected I'd screw things up as I hadn't been in the hobby for a decade.

When I got an API test kit in April, suddenly I'm always seeing a minimum of 20ppm of Nitrate coming out of my well water while also seeing 0.25ppm ammonia consistently coming out of the well too. The test strips didn't catch that.

[GardenStateGoldfish]

from my experience they are very accurate, but if you ever left the lid off you can corrupt the strips so you need to check them to make sure they are still good before you use them