Testing
Water test kit
Testing is how you find out what is happening before the fish tell you. Strips are convenient and imprecise; liquid kits are fiddly and reliable. All reagents expire, and an expired kit produces confident nonsense.
Short answer
Reagent-based tests for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, KH and GH. Liquid kits are substantially more accurate than strips for the nitrogen parameters.
What it does
- Measures dissolved parameters
Strengths and where it fits
Strengths
- Detects problems before symptoms appear
- Cheap relative to the value of the livestock
Good fit for
- Every tank, especially during cycling
Limitations and where it is the wrong choice
Limitations
- Colour matching is subjective, particularly for nitrate
- Strips are unreliable for ammonia and nitrite
- Reagents expire — write the opening date on the bottle
- The nitrate second reagent requires vigorous shaking or the result reads far too low