High Tide Aquatics

Using Hanna ULR Phosphate Checker for Nitrate

Hey everyone,

Just thought this might be helpful.
Hope it's okay to link to Reef2Reef.
Going to try it tomorrow

From cedwards04:

"You need 2 cuvettes, and you need to measure them to be sure they both read the same. To do this, simply fill both cuvettes with water, place in the checker and measure c1, then remove it and place the other cuvette inside and click the button. You should get a reading of 0.00. If you don't, clean the cuvettes and try again. If you still don't, purchase new cuvettes, or account for the difference in your measurements later.

Start with 5ml of tank water in a hanna cuvette (c2) Add 5ml of new, unused saltwater, bringing the total to 10ml in the cuvette. Place 5 drops of red sea part a and shake for 10 seconds. Add 1 level scoop of red sea part b, shake and let stand for 1 minute. Add 1 level scoop of part c, shake for 10 seconds, let stand for 9 minutes.

Fill the other cuvette (c1) with 10ml of sample water. Place c1 into the checker and click the button. Then place c2 into the checker and press the button (do not hold as this will start a 3 min timer). Record your reading and reference the chart for your nitrate ppm. It's that easy.

You may notice some bubbles or particles floating in c2. I like to turn the cuvette horizontally and slowly roll it around before the 9min timer goes off to get all the bubbles off the glass. You can also tap lightly on the side of the glass to help make the bubbles and particles float to the top. This is the hardest part of the process, as these bubbles and particles will throw your measurements off if you do not get rid of them.

Each 1ppm of nitrates will measure as 0.09 ppm on the checker. So it goes as follows:

Hanna ppm. Nitrate ppm
0.09 1
0.18 2
0.27 3
0.36 4
0.45 5
0.54 6
0.63 7
0.72 8
0.81 9
0.90 10"

 
I told @Oakland Evan abiut this and he’s done it and seems to think it works. The real question for me would be, why the fuck isn’t hanna making a nitrate checker yet?

They actually do: https://www.hannainst.com/nitrate-portable-photometer-hi96786.html

But your point is taken about the aquarium market. My 0.02: I'd guess nitrate measurements are important, but it's the one with the lowest requirement for precision and the widest range.

I'd be willing to pay (and would like to eventually buy) ammonia and nitrite checkers to ensure true zeroes, but I'm okay with a cheap nitrate test to ensure I'm in the right range. I'm wondering if that market segment of people like me is large enough to where they just haven't bothered.

Additionally, having to span 0 to 100+ ppm is a much wider dynamic range than 0-2 for ammonia and 0-10 for nitrite. Fully admitting I haven't read the article, but I'm curious if this method is still linear across the entire range of nitrates we'd encounter in our systems.

But if it is, and if the technology is more of a "marketing" shortcoming than a technical one, I have no idea.

EDIT: speaking to my "dynamic range" concern, I see they only tested nitrate ranges up to ~2 ppm. For those with the Hanna checkers, am I correct in assuming the ~200 they quoted as the ULR's output is the max it can detect?

Double edit: derp. Read the post again; yeah, 200 is the max. So, nifty for a low-range nitrate checker!!!
 
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I have been using this method to check nitrates for the last few months, seems to work as advertised.

Side note, I have tested substituting the "fresh salt water" with RODI water and the measurement comes out the same for me. Just FYI for those who don't have extra fresh salt water sitting around.
 
Just tried it and seems helpful.
I also used RODI like @Oakland Evan.
Got a reading of .5, which is somewhere between 5-6.
I checked it with the regular kit and got somewhere in that range as well.
 
They actually do: https://www.hannainst.com/nitrate-portable-photometer-hi96786.html

But your point is taken about the aquarium market. My 0.02: I'd guess nitrate measurements are important, but it's the one with the lowest requirement for precision and the widest range.

I'd be willing to pay (and would like to eventually buy) ammonia and nitrite checkers to ensure true zeroes, but I'm okay with a cheap nitrate test to ensure I'm in the right range. I'm wondering if that market segment of people like me is large enough to where they just haven't bothered.

Additionally, having to span 0 to 100+ ppm is a much wider dynamic range than 0-2 for ammonia and 0-10 for nitrite. Fully admitting I haven't read the article, but I'm curious if this method is still linear across the entire range of nitrates we'd encounter in our systems.

But if it is, and if the technology is more of a "marketing" shortcoming than a technical one, I have no idea.

EDIT: speaking to my "dynamic range" concern, I see they only tested nitrate ranges up to ~2 ppm. For those with the Hanna checkers, am I correct in assuming the ~200 they quoted as the ULR's output is the max it can detect?

Double edit: derp. Read the post again; yeah, 200 is the max. So, nifty for a low-range nitrate checker!!!
If this really works, isn’t it just a matter of altering the output? Kind of like what they did for alkalinity? Originally they outputted alkalinity in like ppm or something before switching to dkh.

EDIT: I didn’t read clearly enough. It uses Red Sea products not the Hannah reagents.
 
If this really works, isn’t it just a matter of altering the output? Kind of like what they did for alkalinity? Originally they outputted alkalinity in like ppm or something before switching to dkh.

EDIT: I didn’t read clearly enough. It uses Red Sea products not the Hannah reagents.

I'm not sure, but my guess would be that altering the output (rather than the measurement instrument) would run into a similar issue of the limited range of the checker.

I'm wondering, though, if this method would work with the regular Hanna phosphate checker, rather than just the ULR, since the ULR probably sacrifices range for precision and it's clear the limiting factor in their tests wasn't the chemistry, but the checker.
 
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