testing equiptment questions

just wondering what people are using for testing their aquarium
levels.
I got tired of trying to get the water right on the mark when testing
for amo, nit, etc. and got a hold of a few 2 tea spoon (10 ml)
needle-less syringes. they are relatively cheap, I guess sterile,
and I use them for different purposes such as dosing and sampling
leaving small chance of contaminating one with the other.
I guess my question is that; can anyone share any experience with using
their own testing methods. for example I went to my local aquarium store
and asked for sodiumthyosulfate(dont count on that spelling being right)
and the guy pointed to amquel. according to what I've read he was wrong
cause sodiumthy.. is meant for separating the chlorine and chloramine
thereby cuasing an amonia spike that is detectable on average tests
as opposed to amquel or any other cholrine treatment sold for the
hobbyst that make amonia undetectable and causing mysterious nitrite spikes.

On Tue, 17 Feb 2004 00:15:14 GMT, Alkad Mzu <Freebsd.DeleteThis@nyc.rr.com>
wrote:

>I guess my question is that; can anyone share any experience with using
>their own testing methods. for example I went to my local aquarium store
>and asked for sodiumthyosulfate(dont count on that spelling being right)
>and the guy pointed to amquel. according to what I've read he was wrong
>cause sodiumthy.. is meant for separating the chlorine and chloramine
>thereby cuasing an amonia spike that is detectable on average tests
>as opposed to amquel or any other cholrine treatment sold for the
>hobbyst that make amonia undetectable and causing mysterious nitrite spikes.

If your ammonia is undetectable then you need to find yourself a real
test kit. Seriously, ammonia test kits should be checking total
ammonia, and not just one specific type. And unless I'm half in the
bag (which is very possible), ANY product that breaks down chloramine
will produce ammonia, doesn't matter if it's AmQuel, AquaPlus,
whatever.

Are you sure you even care about chloramine? There's not a whole lot
of places that use it.

Anyway, I'm happy with the Hagen Master Test Kit - it comes with
everything, including test tubes, caps and 2 pipettes.