Tap Water Test

[Gary D]

I am just about to do a test on my tap water to establish the baseline. (Noting that when asking for advice, it is quite often asked what the levels in the tap water are)

Question is, do I do it with or without the conditioner added?

It's just that I have read that some of the conditioners can turn the chloramine, if present, in to ammonia. Is this correct?

Thanks,
Gary.

PS I did try a search for "tap water" but it came up with a squillion results all containing the word "water"!!

 

[drobbyb]

Hi Gary. This is an interesting question, especially if your tap water authority uses chloramines. Generally, it shouldn't matter whether you test before or after you dechlorinate to get a baseline. Most water conditioners nowadays do break the bond between chlorine and ammonia leaving some ammonia present in your water. Some of them even take this a step further and transform the ammonia into ammonium so that it won't be as toxic to your fish before it is processed by your bacteria.

So this still leaves the original question. I'm not exactly sure how to answer this without misleading you. Anyone else have a better answer?

 

[meguro]

if ur going to condition ur water before adding it to the tank, then u may as well condition it and then test

 

[waterdrop]

From time to time some of us have done before/after tests on conditioning. It can indeed cause a trace of ammonia after conditioning when you have chloramines to be broken apart. You can try it on yours but its bound to be this same very small amount, if anything.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Assaye]

Test both.

And make sure you have a good water conditioner. You want one that removes ammonia associated with chloramines.

 

[Ryefish]

For me, i'd be testing the water that i am going to be putting it in to the tank which would mean with conditioner in. this would be my 'tap water', i.e water that hasnt come in to contact with anything in my tank