replacing reagents

[jaydar]

Which reagents are best to buy in larger quantities and won't degrade...and which ones are more apt to degrade quickly and should be bought in smaller quantities?

Last year I noticed that the red phenol from a taylor kit seemed to lose it's strength over the off season.

 

[duraleigh]

I am not going to go down the list item by item but as a general rule, you can get two seasons out of most Taylor Reagents if you keep them stored in a cool, dry place (inside your air-conditioned house)

That said, Taylor warrants them only for one year so use some caution. Trying to stretch it much beyond two years (although it's perhaps possible) is penny wise and pound foolish.

 

[JasonLion]

All of the dyes, the reagents that color the water, are more sensitive than most of the others. R-0871 is also more sensitive to age/heat/freezing than the others.

How long they last is very much a function of how carefully you store them. If properly stored they can last years, if left in the sun they can go bad after a few weeks. They prefer somewhere cool and dark where the temperature is uniform and never freezes.

 

[JohnT]

I've had R-870 and R-0600 both go bad. Strangely, the 0600 was only about 3 years old, while another bottle of 0600 that was 5 years old or more worked perfectly.