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Water
Testing for the Basic and the Budget
Testing the
conditions and specifications of your aquarium water is a practice that will
help you to avert potential disaster in the future. This will allow you to
forget about the aggravation involved with replacing aquarium components and
trying to reestablish desirable water conditions. Luckily for general hobbyist,
tools that were once only accessible, and most likely affordable, to advanced
aquarists have since become simpler to use and more affordable. With this advent
of easier to use and understand products, a new generation of testing equipment
now provides accurate results to hobbyists of any experience level.
During testing,
the focus is usually aimed at parameters such as pH, water hardness, alkalinity,
nitrite and nitrate. At one point in time five different kits were required; one
for each category. Now, however, a quick dip of an economical test strip
monitors all five parameters in a single trial. Not only is it easy, but it is
also fast; test results appear in under a minute leaving your only real work to
matching the test strip with the corresponding color chart. Although, these are
not nearly as precise as a laboratory grade test kit, this test will provide you
the results you need to determine of a problem exists and if there are any
necessary actions which should be taken for correction.
Even with reef
aquariums, beginner enthusiasts no longer need to feel threatened by maintaining
ideal saltwater conditions. A portable refractometer is an optical device that
provides a direct reading of specific gravity and salinity while automatically
compensating for temperature. To acquire these results, simply place a drop of
water on the lens and hold it up a light source to read the results in the
viewfinder.
Investing in
accurate testing equipment will save your budget and time later, by allowing you
to catch symptoms before they become costly health problems for your aquarium
and its inhabitants.