water changes and test kits

[Supersizeme]

Ok so after having my 29g biocube for a year now I finally decided to set it up, and here are my questions.

I plan on doing a 5g a week water change, I know others on here with BC tanks have done this before and everything looks great in their tanks, which brings me to my other question, if I do the 5g a week changes is there a real need for test kits? ( I'm sure I will catch some crap for this question )

And if so please give me some recommeded ones, I would like a kit not all the individual kind, all my other test kits are all too old to use .

[clownfish14]

I like API and yes you should still test the water because sometimes you might need to do a little bigger waterchange.

[lakshwadeep]

Using test kits is not equivalent to doing water changes. If you ever have a problem, you will need test kits to know what to do (i.e. larger or more frequent water changes).

 

The API saltwater master kit is good for a new tank.

[Metalsculptingben]

Linen and things have the API test kits for super cheap online. The LFS wants $40 for one and lnt wants $17.

[reefer916]

API test kits are pretty good and cheaper than most. It's great for starting a tank. Once you start getting more into LPS and SPS corals you'll need to upgrade to Sailfert or ELOS kits. I've found through personal experience and heard from others that the API Nitrate kits are horrible. I was doing 20% water changes every 3 days for 2 months on my 95 gallon when I first started because it was reading 60 ppm, but my corals and fish looked great. I went and bought another API kit and it read 40 ppm, so I continued to do the water changes for another month. I went through a few hundred dollars in salt. I finally took my water to 3 different LFS's in it was testing at below 5. I was pissed to say the least. I've also heard from several other reefers that the API Nitrate kits don't last long and read pretty high. I've even tested freshly mixed SW and it reads the same. Anyways, the rest of the kits are fine and I use all of them, except the Nitrate one. Good luck

[Supersizeme]

thanks for the replies, i will be throwing out my old kits and buying new stuff and im looking into a ro/di system, this might save me a few dollars down the road, instead of going to the lfs store to buy my water.