Aquarium Test Strips Kit 7 in 1 Parameter (150 Strips) for: ✓Nitrite ✓pH ✓Free Chlorine ✓Carbonate ✓Total Alkalinity ✓General Hardness ✓Nitrate Safe for Freshwater Saltwater or Ponds

I'm a serious fish keeper managing several hundred gallons worth of nano tanks. I have a firm understanding of the chemistry and have tried many different testing products. I absolutely love these strips for the cost, ease of use & consistent results. I will buy them as long as they are available.The tests come with 2 small pipettes to apply a single water droplet onto each square. Holding the strip flat I let them saturate for a few seconds and then gently tip sideways and shake once to knock off the water beads. Then I hold it flat again and wait for a minute before reading. The readings seem to stay accurate after the minute mark as long as the square has not dried out yet. You have to be a little patient with yourself as you learn to discern between the colors.I am not a fan of API or any other liquid chemical tests (although I've used them for many years). If you read the warnings (especially on the API nitrate test) you will find they are not safe to use without gloved hands, eye protection and and isolated work space. Also, the test tubes always end up leaking causing unnecessary exposure to dangerous chemicals. The amount of time spent between these strips and liquid tests is night and day. These have saved me so much time, frustration and allow me to spot check aquariums whenever I want.They are not perfect as a small percentage have miss-glued squares. Surprisingly they've all been usable as it was just an extra square glued on. I ignore the free chlorine square on the test. It does not seem to be accurate and it's not relative to what I'm doing for my aquariums. So glad I found these.I am a real customer. This is a legitimate review.

PROS-Pretty accurateEasy to use.CONS--Directions are contradicting. Pay attention to the times shown on the bottle, not the instructions.-2 year shelf life. I purchased in FEB 2020 Manufactured Aug 2019. Expires Aug 2021 (Kind of a waste unless you have multiple tanks or plan on testing every 2 days)

The other tests correspond to results from other test strips, but the pH has two problems: a) except at the high range, the color patches don't match the test strip and b) the results apparently don't match reality.I wasn't sure which was correct when the Tetra Easy Strips gave lower pH values than these, so I tested using a packaged buffer solution [Hanna Instruments HI7007; pH 7.03 at 20 C]. Tetra gave a result of neutral, which was correct; these showed alkaline, about pH 7.6. It wasn't a problem of color running from an adjacent pad, because I only applied a single drop of buffer to the pH pad, and the other pads remained dry. This error would be a major issue when I am trying to adjust pH for a Malawi environment.OTOH, the hardness and nitrite/nitrate readings appear to be accurate. Therefore, I compromised on three stars.

I love my fish and always do everything I can to keep them safe. Needless to say, when owning a lot of tanks, the costs of water testing instruments add up. Saw this alternative to tetra and other traditional strips and thought Id try it. Used buffers from different brands I had and all the strips I tried gave exact results. I have also been using the strips for about two weeks now and I would definitely recommend them! Take it from a perfectionist fish enthusiast, these strips offer great value, are easier to read because they had the parameters on the bottle (not on a card) and enable you to test your tanks a ton of times.PD: shipping was super fast and received them the next day.

The number of strips for the money is good, but they were past their expiration date.It was hard to read the color. For instance, one of the pads was yellow, and rather than turning the whole pad the appropriate shade of green, it ended up with a smaller square of green in the middle of the yellow pad. Is the reading accurate? I have never seen test strips that do that. Usually the color of the whole pad changes.Also, if you don't read the strips pretty soon . . . if you leave them set for a few minutes, the colors change.I don't know if these problems are a result of the strips being old, or not of good quality. They give me a fairly good idea though, so I will not return them.

Well. Was excited to get so many strips for the price. Problem is when you dip them. There is a good probability that some of the sensors will fall off. And the fish will eat them and therefore cannot get a reading. I would say it happens 50% of the time. So plan on cutting the quantity in half. But the ones that stayed intact worked great. Hopefully mine were old. But I just got them today. So something is wrong. I did 8 tests on 4 tanks. 4 of them fell apart. 4 worked fine.

Nothing to say what is good and what is bad numbers. I will not repurchase.

There are no details on the enclosed instructions as to what the proper reading or range should be for each of the various levels being tested. Had to go online to search for these or look at directions on other products purchased in the past. Overall more complicated than needed for someone with a average size home aquarium in my opinion.