Aquarium Pharmaceuticals® 5 in 1 Aquarium Test Strips

This is a great product for a quick glimpse into the water quality of your aquarium. This product will give you a quick reading for pH, nitrite, nitrate, general and carbonate hardness. The following is what I don't like about it: 1) fairly expensive in local stores 2) no ammonia test 3) do not feel is reliable or very accurate 4) don't like the idea of dipping directly into aquarium, which can release small amounts of whatever chemicals are impregnated on the pads. You can take a sample of your aquarium water in a different vessel to swirl the strip in but you chance altering the reading from a contaminated container (mostly pH and hardness readings can be affected). I use this product on occasion when I know I haven't paid as much attention to my water quality as I should be. If I see something I don't like or trust with the 5 in 1 strip I'll break out the regular liquid test kit to verify. I still recommend using API's standard liquid test kits for more reliable/accurate readings.

Update: I find it better to use these strips by using a small pipette/eye dropper to place a small drop of water from the tank onto each square. The water will soak in and stop the indicator colors from swirling/bleeding, which makes them difficult to read. This way you can do each test individually too because the hardness can be read immediately while the pH, nitrite and nitrate have to be read after 30 seconds.

I bought the API 5 in 1 test strips at the LFS because they didn't have the Jungle Labs version, which I had used previously. Being new to fish keeping, I thought a strip is a strip right? That's not the case. I really don't care for the "dip and swirl" method of the API strips. The pH pad always runs, which then alters the colors of the pads on either side. I've tried swirling gently but the same thing always happens.

I do use the API Master test kit once a week and absolutely love it and highly recommend it. But for daily checks during tank cycling I'm going back to the Jungle Labs 6-in-1.

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