Water Tests

[littlefishie]

When I was testing my water last night, I may or may not have added a 6th, unnecessary drop to my test tube for pH. My initial pH reading was 8.8 and bright purple! I was at a loss, there was no way my pH was that high.

I tested it again, very carefully making sure only 5 drops went into the tube, and got 7.4, which is what I was looking for.

I tried to come up with what would've caused such a high reading. The only things that have changed in my tank since the last water change are:

Co2 injector refilled with new mixture
Plants Grew
Dropped in a week feeder since I was supposed to be going off campus, but look, I'm back 6 days early!

That's about it. ..The only other idea was that maybe an extra drop could throw off the test that badly.

Anybody got a better idea? I'd really like to know how my test went from 8.8 to 7.4 in a span of 5 minutes.

And the kit is the Aquarium Pharmeceuticals Freshwater Master Test Kit.

 

[BobK]

It was the extra drop. If you're supposed to add 5 drops and you add 6, you've added 20% too much. I wouldn't worry about it. You could test a third time if you want. I'm sure it would be back to 7.4.

 

[littlefishie]

It is back to 7.4 ..but I've accidentally added an extra drop before and it's never been that bad.

 

[BobK]

It's possible you had a little more or less water in the tube. I have the same test kits from AP, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate & PH. If 2 of 3 tests came back at 7.4 and you accidentally added an extra drop on the 3rd test you're fine.

 

[littlefishie]

Mmkay.. it just seemed so weird, I was like 'holy bright purple, batman!' ..I was kinda wondering how my tetras were so active in an 8.8pH..

 

[The Mohave Kid]

I tested some distilled water recently .. it should of been 6.0 turned out to be 7.6 ... the problem .. not much more then one drop of my tap water was in the test vial ( from a sink washing ) ...

The high alkalinity kH = 180 ppm and alkaline pH ( 7.8 ) of my tap water was no match for the very soft low alakalinity distilled water ... when one meets the other the tap water wins.

Good Day ... B)