Water Tests

[Wu-Gwei]

I was just wondering what is a good method to test the water... I see so many tests out there. What is a good brand? I mean there's pH, ammonia, nitrates, nitrites, Cl, and etc. What else should I test for?

Cheers,
JJ

[ETET]

Water test, an interesting topic! Before any water test, I suggest you have to know a few things:

1. what kind of water you are going to use, tap water, distilled water, RO water, salt water etc. This is very important that if you know what kind of water you are using, this will save you lots of time as some test works well or have a range; e.g. pH test have low, high or general range avaliable. Test the water before you put any animal in; I don't know if a lot of people test their own tap water or not.

2. what kind of fish/animals you are keeping; like fresh water / salt water, soft water/hard water, salt water fish/ invertebrates. This is because different animals is specific to a certain chemical which may affect them the most; e.g. discus is very sensitive to pH and hardness of water. Therefore, if you know you animal well, you just pick the most important water test which will affect that animal the most.

3. pirority of test: there are way too much test for water in the market, many of them are not essential. But why is still out there? Only a few species may need those specific test and some keepers are " number goers"; some keeper seems fascinating about water chemistry and keep on and on for more test. Eventually, you will find out even you got all the tests data right, the animal may still not perfect, because you cannot make a captivity environment like natural. Of course, essential test is a must to keep your animal healthy but may not guarantee perfect. I went through this before and now I just keep a few tests handy and the fish is healthy.


May be I confuse you too much, get a book about water chemistry of fish keeping, try think about the points I listed above. Then you should be able to pick what kind of water test is essential. For water test brands, I find those made from Germany are quite reliable. I am using some of those, for a even reliable reading, I am using a pH meter and conductivity meter. As I said before, do not invest that kind of money before you know what you are doing!


ETET

[Moose1960]

IMHO the most important tests are tests for pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. As you get use to these and understand the need then you can move on to specific tests which you might need depending on the fish you are holding. Make sure you have the appropriate test kit for your water, as in freshwater kit or marine kit, or if you have Brackish you may need to have both depending on the salinity.

But a major factor in keeping good water quality which I cannot stress enough is do at least a 20% water change a week.
A few good sites for more reading are

http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/

http://www.tomgriffin.com/

And my favorite which has many helpful/knowledgable people is
Aquaria Central
Which has a excellent forum like this one and also many good articles.

[Wu-Gwei]

I knew I should talk to fish people about water... ha ha. I am a turtle keeper and interested in keeping fish in the future. So, freshwater from the tap.


Cheers,
JJ

P.S. I guess I am interested in water tests b/c of my filter and the water I am providing for my turtles. I'd like to make sure the filter is doing its job and doing the biological filtering as well.