Casey Calvert

For those who don't use these kits very much, then I would suggest that the dry tablets sealed in foil would be the only way to go. All the bits of paper in my liquid kits tell me that once you open the bottle then shelf life is a year or less! Its only because I have a LOT of tanks to test that I go with the drops. They sure are a lot quicker than ripping open foil and crushing tablets to dissolve them before making a test. Everyone to his own breed of poisen. Casey.

One of the reasons that I decided on Hagen kits was that you can buy odd bottles. With the fresh/salt water ammonia kit I always seemed to run outof bottle three before anything else. So, that extra bottle of 3, allowed me to finish up all the dregs. However, its a mixed blessing, because the price for one bottle is way above one third of the price of a kit! The main reason however is that they use the 'Indophenol' test for ammonia, and I can get that result double checked by our local ebvironmental lab. Most of the rest use the two bottle salicylate method and I have no double check on that. However I do get far more tests out of the A.P. Salicylate kit than the Hagen one. Casey.

Shilo, Hi! Yes the Hagen freshwater ammonia test kit is the yellow one with one bottle. I was using the fresh/salt water kit which has an orange pack and has three bottles. I don't know whether the latest couple of kits I bought have been too long on the shelf or what, but they didn't work. Yes my bench can look like a chemists shop too! Are we too fussy or too scientific?? Casey.

Slight change of subject. What sort of ammonia test kits does everybody out there prefer? I have been very happy with the Hagen kit which was O.K. until I got a new one and the third dropper bottle had brown instead of clear drops, which wouldn't work at all. I am now using the A.P. kit which is two dropper bottles. It gives a reaction every time, but does so even on good clean tap water and on rain water??? Casey C.