The SpeedStir is a very interesting miniature magnetic stirrer for better and easier testing of water quality. However this novel contraption comes to us not from the aquarium hobby, but from the pool water testing division of Taylor Technologies.
Home water testing of aquarium water is the backbone of what allows us to manage water quality in the first place. With drop test water analysis, there’s a lot of mixing involved, and titration tests even require special coordination with both hands to make a measurement.
While some of us have mastered the delicate dance of swirling the water test solution in one hand while carefully titrating reagents and dropping them in while keeping count, it is one of the most cumbersome aspects of testing certain water parameters. Thankfully, the SpeedStir mini magnetic stirrer is here to automate this once manual task.
With the touch of a button you turn on the SpeedStir’s motor which spins a magnetic stirrer bar placed inside the water sample to be mixed. As an added bonus, there’s an additional button which turns on an LED light built into the stirrer to illuminate your test sample in dimly conditions – most useful for determining the precise color change of titration tests.
The working area of the SpeedtStir magnetic stirrer looks plenty large to accomodate aquarium water testing vials, and there’s no limit to what you can mix in this nifty tool. We’ve had a larger magnetic stirrer in our repertoire for many years now, and have used it to mix up everything from interceptor treatments to microbatch salt mix but never thought to use it for stirring water tests.
The one thing that the SpeedStir does lack is some kind of speed adjustment, with this magnetic stirrer being spun at a fixed 600 rotations per minute. However with a list price of $50 or just $25 online, this is one cool little gadget that we’re definitely going to have to try.
