Just for the record I never test anything. I find lots of people tell me I need to test things. Some people tell me I don’t need to test things and then they tell me I should maintain certain levels of chemicals and that I need to test them. Most of the people who test things claim the tests are very inaccurate. These people always claim you need to test the test kits to figure out if your tests are accurate. I have no interest in testing the things I need to test things to see if my tests are accurate. Since there is no good reason to test things that haven’t been tested to insure they are accurate I don’t test things.
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- Thread starter AndyMcD
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Hi all,
I'm not anti-testing, quite the opposite, I'd really like to know all the parameters for the aquariums, and it was the difficulties in getting repeatable results that first led me to looking at other methods for estimating water quality. The only dip meter, or test kit, that I could find that gave repeatable results over the whole range of water conditions, without constant re-calibration or sample preparation etc, was a conductivity meter. Conductivity isn't the measurement you would like, but you can use it to get a datum for your water.
If you keep non-planted aquariums water testing is much more relevant, mainly because you don't have plants as a bio-indicator of water quality.
In commercial horticulture, even though they can now pretty accurately quantify the physio-chemical attributes of any novel media, growth trials in controlled conditions are still used to assess media suitability. Final decisions are made based on plant growth, colour, time to flowering, flower production etc .
The same applies to waste water treatment, a range of bioassay organisms are used to quantify "clean" water quality before that water is discharged back into water courses etc. Among the bioassay organisms used are "Duck-weeds" of the genus Lemna. In the <"Lemna bioassay">, plant mortality, leaf colour and rate of increase are used as indicators of nutrient and pollution status.
In water quality testing in streams and lakes etc. you use a combination of <"5 day BOD"> test and a <"biotic index"> to quantify water quality. If you have chemical and physical parameters (substrate type, pH, geographical region etc) for your water courses you can use probability to estimate whether your invertebrate sample differs significantly from the predicted value. If you have a much lower score on the biotic index than <"the prediction"> you have an indication that a pollution event has occurred.
Unfortunately we can't use either BOD test or biotic index for the aquarium, but we can use the health of a floating plant (floating to remove CO2 from the equation) as an indication of nutrient status. Sadly a lot of people use fish with high demands on water quality as a proxy biotic index, and rapidly kill off Hill-stream Loaches, large rheophilic plecs, Chocolate Gourami, Tropheus etc.
I started suggesting using the <"Duckweed Index"> because plants are the single largest factor in maintaining water quality, and it gave people an easy visual guide to tank health. It is a "win, win" situation.
cheers Darrel
They do, but it is back to the sea water analogy, you have a salty solution with a known pH and high nitrogen (urea) levels.Yeah but all this chatter about possible interference re aquarium water testing - what about urine testing... those multitest strips work surprisingly well
It really depends on what you are testing for, nitrate (NO3-), is always going to be problematic because it is a monovalent anion. There is a review of test strips (in agriculture) <"here">.
I'd agree with this, anything that identifies sudden changes is really useful, but I'm very dubious that people are going to get meaningful results from their LFS in the UK. They may do in the Netherlands, Sweden or Germany etc. where the hobby is more advanced.
I'm not anti-testing, quite the opposite, I'd really like to know all the parameters for the aquariums, and it was the difficulties in getting repeatable results that first led me to looking at other methods for estimating water quality. The only dip meter, or test kit, that I could find that gave repeatable results over the whole range of water conditions, without constant re-calibration or sample preparation etc, was a conductivity meter. Conductivity isn't the measurement you would like, but you can use it to get a datum for your water.
If you keep non-planted aquariums water testing is much more relevant, mainly because you don't have plants as a bio-indicator of water quality.
In commercial horticulture, even though they can now pretty accurately quantify the physio-chemical attributes of any novel media, growth trials in controlled conditions are still used to assess media suitability. Final decisions are made based on plant growth, colour, time to flowering, flower production etc .
The same applies to waste water treatment, a range of bioassay organisms are used to quantify "clean" water quality before that water is discharged back into water courses etc. Among the bioassay organisms used are "Duck-weeds" of the genus Lemna. In the <"Lemna bioassay">, plant mortality, leaf colour and rate of increase are used as indicators of nutrient and pollution status.
In water quality testing in streams and lakes etc. you use a combination of <"5 day BOD"> test and a <"biotic index"> to quantify water quality. If you have chemical and physical parameters (substrate type, pH, geographical region etc) for your water courses you can use probability to estimate whether your invertebrate sample differs significantly from the predicted value. If you have a much lower score on the biotic index than <"the prediction"> you have an indication that a pollution event has occurred.
Unfortunately we can't use either BOD test or biotic index for the aquarium, but we can use the health of a floating plant (floating to remove CO2 from the equation) as an indication of nutrient status. Sadly a lot of people use fish with high demands on water quality as a proxy biotic index, and rapidly kill off Hill-stream Loaches, large rheophilic plecs, Chocolate Gourami, Tropheus etc.
I started suggesting using the <"Duckweed Index"> because plants are the single largest factor in maintaining water quality, and it gave people an easy visual guide to tank health. It is a "win, win" situation.
cheers Darrel
so odd with no emoticons ... but this statement made me laugh ... you missed out on your work term in the Urinalysis Lab! - samples exhibit broad range in pH, solute levels, chemistry etc, certainly a greater variation than any tank waters I've seen (emergent, dialysis, surgical, long term care etc)
Guilty as charged
Can I mention the visible fungal (?) "threads" emerging from these poor sad fish as a "mitigating circumstance" - couldn't believe that someone had shipped them on an across-the-world journey!
I took them home & sadly watched them die, thought 1 might survive as it was actually eating for a few days, but then it too refused food, finally euthanized when it also began to exhibit extreme "fungal" signs
Plants & shrimp looked great - as did your "duckweed"
- which I must now protest as I'm being forced to scoop out handfuls of the stuff & it's ALL Darrel's Fault <jk>
Hi all,
cheers Darrel
That is interesting, I've been a "plant man" since I was in my teens, and I only know the bits of biochemistry and animal physiology which I've encountered during work. I'd just assumed that urine was fairly standard, but thinking about it I can see that is a wrong assumption. I should have known, because remember one of our football coaches who used to start every session with the statement "have you drunk enough water? yellow p*ss is for losers".
There was nothing you can do, the death rate of wild caught fish is a disgrace, and I'm sure we've all bought fish because we felt sorry for them and knew that they had no chance if they stayed in the shop etc. but the damage is already done.
I have a remove on sight for any Lemna now, although I know in my tanks if it starts growing the pH and hardness has crept up. I can just about keep up with thinning the Limnobium, but I have great skeins of intermingled Riccia and Utricularia gibba in the tanks at work, where I have limited time and access.
cheers Darrel
