Testing Tap Water Help ?

[Harlequins]

Hi all

Originally when i tested my tap water i put some in a glass and left it overnight and tested it with tetra dipsticks,i have since learned that these test sticks are unreliable.

Is there a right or wrong way of testing tap water.
Do i leave some in a glass overnight,or test it straight from the tap?
Because surely leaving it overnight is more or less the same has adding aquasafe?

 

[fatheadminnow]

Test is straight from the tap. Leaving it sit over night is not going to change the water parameters.

No, leaving it sit overnight is not the same as adding a water conditioner. No matter what, every time you add water to your tank you want to add a water conditioner.

-FHM

 

[Harlequins]

Test is straight from the tap. Leaving it sit over night is not going to change the water parameters.

No, leaving it sit overnight is not the same as adding a water conditioner. No matter what, every time you add water to your tank you want to add a water conditioner.

-FHM

Thanks,i just wondered whether to test straight from the tap when testing the tap water only,and i am aware that i must add a water conditioner before adding to the tank.
Many thanks

 

[alchemist]

You should also test it once after adding the water conditioner to see if that is producing ammonia

 

[fatheadminnow]

You should also test it once after adding the water conditioner to see if that is producing ammonia

The water conditioner should not produce ammonia.

What it may do is turn ammonia into ammonium, which is harmless to the fish but still detectable by our test kits, as it comes up on the test kit as regular ammonia.

-FHM

 

[home breeders]

Does anyone boil their water and leave it overnight to climatise? Does this make any difference?

 

[fatheadminnow]

Does anyone boil their water and leave it overnight to climatise? Does this make any difference?

Not really.

All you need to do is add a water conditioner.

I just turn the warm water up on the tap to match the temp in the tank, add water dechlor and add the new water to the tank.

Boiling the water is not going to get rid of any ammonia, nitrite or nitrate in the water, all it may do is kill off any little organisms that may be living in the water. However, that is very unlikely just because chlorine in tap water will kill off any living organisms.

So in conclusion, I don't think boiling the water has any positive, or any at all, effects on the water.

-FHM

 

[alchemist]

No - chloramine = ammonia + chlorine - if your water conditioner only breaks the bond and removes chlorine you will be left with toxic ammonia.

A reading of ammonia after treatment - be that ammonia or ammonium depending on your water conditioner, is worth knowing about as it suggests the presence of chloramine in your water supply. You therefore need to check your water conditioner is going to deal with that appropriately and you are using the correct dosage.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agree with alchemist here. Treating your tap water with conditioner can indeed "produce ammonia" in the situation where your water authority uses chloramine rather than chlorine (becoming more the majority in most countries now I believe) and if your conditioner is the type that deals with chloramine (this is nearly universal now since its obviously needed and it wasn't hard for the manufacturers of conditioners to switch.

We have chloramines in the tap water where I live and I've carefully tested this. I measured zero ammonia out of the tap. I then treated the water with a chloramine bond breaking conditioner and tested for ammonia again. Yes indeed, there it was, just a tiny trace, but it was noticeable by my liquid ammonia test kit.

So the complicated answer to Harlequin's question is to do a simple test right out of the tap to get a basic answer of ammonia, nitrite, pH and nitrate right out of the tap. But to see what the conditioner does to ammonia and pH, test after conditioning. And as a further complication, there are the pH issues that CO2 will gas -out- of the water after it leaves pipe pressure and goes to room pressure, usually raising the pH and then there's the possibility that the conditioner will change pH some and a still further issue during fishless cycling that adding ammonia will raise the pH too!

Beginners, please bear in mind that this is all in the realm of nitpicking for the most part! Its pretty rare that these issues will have much bearing on the larger processes of fishless or fish-in cycling and I don't feel most people should be overly concerned by these details.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Harlequins]

Thanks everyone

Well i tested tap water straight out of the tap,ammonia/nitrite zero,nitrate showing,not zero but next reading is 12.5,but not quite that colour either,so i'd go mid way
ph usual 8.5.

I will test again,when i run a buckets for a water change with conditioner in.just so i know




edited cos i cant spell lol!

 

[fatheadminnow]

No - chloramine = ammonia + chlorine - if your water conditioner only breaks the bond and removes chlorine you will be left with toxic ammonia.

A reading of ammonia after treatment - be that ammonia or ammonium depending on your water conditioner, is worth knowing about as it suggests the presence of chloramine in your water supply. You therefore need to check your water conditioner is going to deal with that appropriately and you are using the correct dosage.

Yes I know, I was referring to my water conditioner I use which is API Stress Coat. API removes chlorine, chloramine and ammonia from the water leaving the water free of those toxins, leaving them in another state.

-FHM

 

[Curiosity101]

Just a thought, leaving it for awhile before testing is a good idea. Water in the pipes tends to be kept under pressure which keeps varying amounts of CO2 dissolved into the water. Once out of the pipes and in a cup or fish tank, the CO2 gases out.
This causes a rise in pH..

I've seen plenty of posts where people are confused because their tap water measures pH 7 ish but their tank is up near pH 8.

 

[OldMan47]

There are any number of things that you might want to know about tap water. WD is right that you can find ammonia from chloramine after dechlorinating so that is one point you will want to check. GH and KH will not change over time so no reason to wait to measure them. Nitrites and nitrates will also hold steady over time so again any traces will be apparent with newly drawn water. The CO2 content will change with time so a pH on freshly drawn water and again a few hours later will tell you how much to expect the pH to change. The change due to CO2 does not matter to your fish but if the pH always rises about 0.5, you can take the final pH into account if you decide to try to match the pH of the tank's water. The match you will want or the effect of the new water is the pH after the water is allowed to degas.