How to Test Your Fish Tank Water and What it Means

At some point in time, whether your fish were sick or not you wanted to test the water in your aquarium to see how well you’ve been doing. You do not need to take the water into the pet store because they will do the same tests that you can purchase from their pet store. They will test your water for free but you don’t want to bug them every couple of weeks for a free water test. You can purchase test strips which will last you at least 4 months and you can test your own water at your home, before or after your water changes.

You can purchase test strips which will test everything in your water or just a few of the things in your water. You can test your ph, chlorine, ammonia, nitrate, nitrite and hardness or alkinity. Usually everybody’s water will test a little high in the ph and alkinity section. This is because water is naturally hard unless you have soft water or salt in your saltwater heater. If you have a soft water heater, perhaps it ran out of salt. You can purchase different things such as ph down or ph up to get the proper ph in your fish tank. You will want to check each of your fish to see what ph they will require. There’s nothing you can do to change the alkinity except for adding salt to your water. You can purchase freshwater salt for your tank that you can add as well.

The nitrate and nitrite levels are basically the same. They will measure how much fish waste, uneaten food and debris is in your tank. When these levels start to get high you will need to change the water. That’s the only way to get these levels down. If they remain high you need to change more water, more frequently. You are probably over feeding your fish. You will also want to clean your filter system out too, when you change the water in your tank.

Ammonia levels are fish fish waste. When this starts to get high you will also need to do a water change. You will need to make sure that you have fresh carbon in your filter system when you need to replace it. You will probably need to replace the filters at least once every two or three weeks. It will usually state on your filter system box how often you should change the carbon and sponges.

You can purchase one type of test which will only test one of these or you can purchase 5 in one or 6 in one test strips and test everything in your water. These tests will usually cost you around six dollars and they will last you at least four or five months.