During the first semester in my biochemistry class the professor started the class by bringing out two clear beakers into which he appeared to pour two identical clear fluids. Once they were full, he pulled out a worm and placed it in the first beaker , which it immediately crawled out of. He then took the worm and placed it in the second beaker.
To our astonishment, within seconds the worm started to dissolve. He then pronounced that the first beaker contained pure water and the second pure alcohol. He then asked” does anyone know what this means?’ The quarterback of our football team sitting next to me shouted out “yeah if you drink alcohol you won’t get worms”. “No”, the professor yelled while glaring at him. “You can’t tell what a fluid is simply by looking at it.”
你不能告诉什么是流体只是通过一个t it
Sadly, a lot of us, myself included, often think we know what is in our water simply by looking at it. I have been contacted many times by hobbyists asking why a coral died, or why all of their recently added new corals died, while their old corals were doing great, or why they all of a sudden had an algae bloom, etc. When I ask what their water parameters are, they invariably reply either they were perfect or they don’t know.
Like maintenance, quarantining animals and cleaning the glass, water testing is an unglamorous task that nonetheless is one of the most crucial aspects for having long-term success in the hobby. I don’t care how good your lights are, or how efficient your skimmer is or how much you paid for a frag, none of that matters if you don’t have good consistent water quality and you can’t tell just by looking at the tank how good your water quality is.
As I said, testing the levels of all of the important parameters is probably one of the least fun aspects of keeping a tank and does require some time to do it right. And to be honest most test kits only really give you a close ballpark value for what your tank’s parameters are. I have found and read that there is variability in the measurements between test kits from different companies and sometimes even between kits from the same company.
Also there can be variability from when a kit is new to when it gets old, that is why the better kits now have an expiration date on them, as it is recognized that reagents, especially liquid ones, can deteriorate over time and thus give false readings. Before I became obsessive about testing my water, I now test the alkalinity in my tanks every day, the alkalinity test kit I was using was over 3 years old.
liquid reagents can deteriorate over time
我知道它很老,但是对自己来说,事情会变质多少?由于我有偏见认为我的水很好,而且大多数珊瑚看起来还不错,所以我以为这些测量值已经进行了,并认为这是直到我开始始终逐步失去珊瑚为止的。我没有看到我的测试套件问题,而是把水箱的水带到商店里进行测试。最初,所有测量结果都恢复了好,直到它们到达碱度为止。
The alkalinity in my tank was off the charts at 17, the old alkalinity test kit I had been using was off by that much and not many corals can tolerate this high of a level for very long. Needless to say, this wake-up call kickstarted me to test the water more frequently. So now I test alkalinity daily, calcium, magnesium, salinity and phosphate weekly.
Potassium, strontium, and nitrate are tested once a month, as they are not only not as critical as the other parameters in my opinion, but they also fluctuate less over the short-term. I also check the other parameters daily on the monitor including pH, temperature and ORP. [Ed. Note:Salinity isthe most importantparameter in keeping a saltwater tank; it is a measurement total for all the dissolved solids in your aquarium and the smaller the tank volume, the more often you should test for it.]
All of the values obtained are kept in a log. Initially they were kept on an Excel spreadsheet on my computer, but I found it took longer to log them in than it did to do the test, so now they are just written down on a log, that sits beside the tank that allows for easy viewing.But if you want to do them on a spreadsheet this will allow you to graph the values over time.
正如我所指出的那样,我非常喜欢使事情变得容易,因为我更有可能完成这项任务。出于类似的原因,我现在在大多数测试中都使用ELOS测试,因为当颜色改变时,我喜欢它。我的眼睛不像以前那样好,在某些测试套件中,我使用的颜色变化太微妙了。
我更喜欢能够分辨出它何时更改,并且我知道ELOS测试既准确又一致。同样,Elos也带来了比色计,这将使猜测何时更改何时更改。我也确实将Salifert套件保留在碱度,钙和镁中,因为当测试结果与我期望的备份明显不同时。
尽管我不喜欢进行测试,但我发现几件事使它变得更容易,结果更可靠。首先,我经常进行测试越快,我可以做到。对于我每个月只做一次的测试,我仍然需要每次阅读指示,因此这通常会使测试所需的时间翻倍。对于我经常进行的测试,我现在可以在不阅读指示的情况下进行测试,因此显然它们完成了更快的操作。每次进行测试时,我也会同时进行测试。
每天同时,我都会检查碱度和每个星期六,同时我进行所有其他测试。这样,储罐中的条件大致相同,因此,如果某些东西不合时宜,则更有可能被检测到,因为该测试同时始终如一地进行。我也两次进行每项测试。我知道,当读数从我们的期望中消失时,我们大多数人只进行了第二次测试,有时我们会做它们,直到我们获得想要的阅读为止。但是由于用户错误,测试可能会关闭并看起来正确和关闭,并且不正确。因此,为了确保我不会缺少任何东西,现在我进行两次测试。
More than 9 times out of 10 the readings are consistent, but every now and then they differ markedly. When this occurs I run a third test and then try to determine why the tests differed.I have found that there are a lot of ways to introduce user error when doing these tests. It can be as simple as using the top of the meniscus for one test and the bottom for the next or adding the drops differently, so now I try to be consistent in how I do all of these things both within tests and between tests and since I do them often my consistency has improved as well.
I know I sound obsessive about testing, and actually it is worse than that as I now not only test the water in all of my tanks daily and weekly, I have five saltwater tanks, but the water for water changes is also tested before it is added as is added to the tank. Also the water from any vendor from whom I have gotten corals is also tested before I add the coral to my tank.
I test the make-up water because I want to make sure it is consistent from batch to batch. At times in the past I have some times seen my tank look worse after a water change than the same or better and initially I could not figure out why. Then I started testing it to determine if it was markedly different from my tank’s water. For the most part most freshly made up synthetic saltwater is consistent from batch to batch, and mine is made up a week before it is used for a water change.
However some salt mixes differ markedly from the water in my tank. I use Instant Ocean for my make-up water mainly because I have been using it for 30 years and it is consistent from batch to batch. But I also know that it is consistently low in magnesium, but I now know by how much so when I mix it up, I just add the same amount of magnesium to each batch and it is good.
我从新获得的珊瑚中测试袋子中的水的原因是,与盐混合物一样,我发现水箱中的水与其他水箱中的盐可能显着不同。这样,如果我得到的珊瑚做得不好,我至少有一个起点。这也使我了解了我需要多长时间和需要做什么acclimate the new coral to my tank。That is if the water from another tank that a coral has come from is markedly different I may take two or three days to acclimate it the conditions in my tank.
I have found that by acclimating corals where the water it came from is significantly different from mine that doing a gradual acclimation greatly increases the likelihood of its long term survival. And considering what we are paying for frags and how much we hate to lose any coral, I think that knowing the differences and acclimating accordingly is the least we can do to enhance the likelihood of a successful acquisition.
除了上面讨论的所有测试外,我每周还进行其他测试。在开始每周的仪式之前,我会拿出隔板表并测试流浪电压。这似乎是一个奇怪的测试,可以进行所有水测试,但是这样做了两次,因为这样做,我发现一个加热器已经破裂了,并且通往Powerhead的电线正在关闭。我感到震惊,几乎被电死了,以至于每周进行30秒钟的测试现在是我觉得很聪明的事情。
Water testing is not rocket science and doing it for the most part does not require a degree in chemistry. But doing it regularly and keeping a log of your results will go a long way in helping you have long term success in the hobby.As I learned in my biochemistry class and in my own tanks the hard way, you can’t tell what’s in the water without testing it. And for the quarterback in my class, he flunked out of the class, but now runs a successful construction company.