Gh/kh Testing?

[stixdz]

ok i got my gh/kh test kit and i cant figure out how to take the readings. (for GH) it says drip a drop till the water in the test tube after shaken goes from orange to green. Where do they get orange from? the GH liquid is green and stays green when i drip it in my water does this mean it takes 1 drop or is something wrong?

Also with the KH it says it should go from blue to yellow but the liquid in my bottle is yellow and stays yellow when i drip it in?

Does this make sense to anyone i am so lost

can someone explain this to me?

Thanks

 

[Mikaila31]

Is the tank planted?

Double the amount of water being tested, for example if it says use 6ml use 12ml. Each drop will count for 1/2 a degree.

Also out of curiosity do you ever have PH swings?

 

[stixdz]

the tank is being cycled right now and my PH is going from 7.4 to 6 back to 7.4 that is why i got this kit any ideas on what to do about this? what do these results mean so far? am i doing the test right? there are no plants in the tank and it is a 65 gallon tall

 

[Colin_T]

When testing for hardness you add one drop of the regeant and swirl the solution. Then add another drop and swirl. You keep doing this until you get a colour change in the test phial. If you have very hard water it can take 20 or more drops to get a colour change. Very soft water will change colour when the first drop goes in.

Some test kits use 2 regeants for hardness. You add a couple of drops (or powder) from one bottle, swirl and then start adding drops from the other bottle. The first bottle gives you one colour and then the drops from the second bottle give you another colour when the hardness is reached.

 

[Mikaila31]

The test may be being thrown off by the cycle, but I'm really not sure about this. Try testing you tap water to see if you can get a reading. Who is the kit made by?

So far I have no clue what the readings mean, I don't think they are right. I've never heard of a GH/ KH of zero. Gh/Kh tells you how well you water will resist ph changes, if it was zero you would be seeing drastic ph swings.

 

[stixdz]

its an api test kit.

the thing that is throwing me off is for gh the liquid is suppose to go from orange to green but yet the color of the liquid in the bottle is already green, and stays green.

i get the same results from my tap water, could the kit be bad? it is brand new bought today?

edit: ok so i tested 5, 10, 20ml of my tap water and the same results (for Kh first drop is yellow after shaking) but when i go and dump it in the sink the water running it turns blue so the test is working it just takes more than 20ml to effect this what does this mean?

 

[Mikaila31]

Its normal for the bottle to be the color you want to end at. How well are you shaking it when you add the drop to the water sample?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

i would suspect that means you have a KH of 0-1. It should say on the instructions somewhere if it turns green on the first drop then it's 0-1.

This means you have v soft water with little to no buffering capacity, you will probably want to buffer it up........ I'm sure waterdrop will be along later with some more info.

If I'm right then this explains the pH swings.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agreed, this has sound of someone with very soft water getting the reading on the first drop, which is always confusing.

If you want to see the other color, you could try this: Put a teaspoon of pure kitchen baking soda (should say sodium bicarbonate on ingredients) in a glass of tap water. Take your test sample from this and then try the drops.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[stixdz]

i will give that shot to see what hppens in the glass, is this an easy fix or do you think it would be better just to do about a 90% water change and fill it with water that hasent gone though my water softener? This soft water is making it imposable for my tank to cycle any suggestions on what i should do?

Thanks for the help so far

 

[Duck and Dive]

I dont really trust any of api's products. I dont think they are that great. Try tetra stuff, i find it a lot better.

D&D

 

[waterdrop]

Interesting.. about the water softener (its a machine in your house I assume?)

There are a few members on here who I think know about this, I think I've seen it discussed. Hopefully we can connect up with them -- any members out there remember a discussion about water softeners or know of someone who knows? (I was thinking monkeybiz or Andy or Colin or Tolak might know?)

What I'm wondering is whether the house water softeners sometimes add something that causes the pH to read one level right out of the tap but then after some time period it changes. This can be very confusing when trying to watch your pH during fishless...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[waterdrop]

Well, I -do- happen to use a Tetra "TetraTest" KH test kit and it seems very accurate (in that the results make sense with other observations) but I've been very happy with my API Freshwater Master Test Kit and know that many others, perhaps even a majority on TFF, so I can't agree with making a blanket statement about API.

~~waterdrop~~