Do you want to test your pond water? Then take great care
Testing Pond water ...
Thousands and thousands of test kits are sold every year and most of these will sit on the shelf unused. They were bought with good intention but the fish pond owner quickly finds that the results are difficult to understand and once the result is known what is to be done next anyway? This is particularly true for tests results for pH and hardness for example. My suggestion is quite simply do NOT test the water at all unless you really must and then do it repeatedly to get an answer that is close to correct. Why? Because you can get yourself into heck of a muddle once you start testing for the following reasons:
- A) Reagents in test kits normally have a short shelf life after which they can produce very misleading results.
- B) Many test reagents are inaccurate anyway and give misleading results.
- C) Important parameters such as pH, ammonia and nitrites within the pond itself change during the day.Test results thereof will also change depending on time of day and when you fed the fish for example. In good faith based upon a test you add a "correctant" to your pond to find on a later test it has not helped. You therefore add more or add a "counter-correctant" Eventually you go around in circles and actually create a real problem by virtue of what has been added
- D) In my opinion the ONLY time you need to test is when you believe you do have a serious problem and need expert and immediate action. This type of action cannot be catered for by using a low cost test kit with dubious accuracy. The best test kit by far is the behaviour of your fish.
If you must test and after all this is a great hobby then get the best test kit you can find .... Like many things price is probably the best determinant of quality. Then build up a trend record by testing every day at the same time ... this way you'll start to understand changes which is more important to observe than actual absolute values.