Water levels and test kits questions

[sweetmisery]

Once again, here I am asking some questions I bet you guys memorized or can answer without blinking... Sorry...

Anyways, my question are regarding water levels, I know I have to check them, especially before putting livestock. But sadly enough, I called all fish pet stores I know here in Cebu and they barely have them, most only have amonia tests. They dont have a full set kit.

So is there some other ways of testing them? And which are the most important to test on having a marine tank? Cuz a person from a pet store said I dont need to test all of those water levels... just a few.

So if I cant get my hands on such test kits, should I just stop my plan on setting up a marine aquarium again? Cuz I dont want it to just fail miserably. :( I only have one week left til I can finally buy and start one, but now another problem arises...

[Zack]

Once again, here I am asking some questions I bet you guys memorized or can answer without blinking... Sorry...

This forum was set-up to help, please don't feel bad and I am sure this thread will help people later on.

As for the test kits, I suggest tyo test what you dose for. For the start you need a pH,ammonia, nitrate, nitrite. These test will be needed to see if your cycle is complete and if problems arise to check these levels. You can buy these at almost every store online and I suggest looking at some of the sponsor stores as some give discounts and pritty sure some ship international.
Are you planning on a reef or Fish only? If a reef and you will be dosing calcium then you may want to get a test kit and on from there if you plan to dose other things.

[sweetmisery]

OK... thanks. But the pH, ammonia, nitrate and nitrite, are they really seperate? No one test for all? And international delivery really cost a lot, sometimes more than the item itself, but Ill take a look... thanks again.

[Zack]

They are very seprate and i suggest if you have a little time to check this article out and hop it will help explain some more on these http://www.coralforum.com/reference57.html

[sweetmisery]

But so far, as what you said, these are the only one needed to start - pH,ammonia, nitrate, nitrite?

and thanks, I will read it as soon as Im offline.