I bought a sera low end test kit some time ago. I had it to figure out water values if i noticed (visually) anything wrong with the fish behaviour. All has been well for some time tho. With regular weekly/bi-weekly (depending on the season) 30% waterchanges.

However, it’s fine with community tanks or aquascapes. If you are going to do a Lake Tangayika tank, you want to know your water values for sure.

It’s time to grab that kit and start testing.

I will be checking the pH, gH and kH, because with tap-water, we just rely on the Nitrites and Nitrates given by the watersupplier. Which should be near 0 for drinking water, right? Btw, Nitrate seems to be in between 4.78 and 7.42 here.

Let’s test

Now as i said, this is a cheap kit. I’m expecting differences in between what the watercompany states and my observation.
I’m using water from Waternet in the Amsterdam Area, their website has global details on the water quality. The information is found here: https://www.waternet.nl/ons-water/drinkwater/waterkwaliteit/ .

My testkit is the cheapest kit Sera has to offer. It has the 5 basic tests and since I’m going to check the water directly from the tap. I don’t have to worry about water poluting the vials. Since I rinse and test with the same water.

pH

First test, pH. According to the Waternet’s website this is in between 8.09 and 8.20. By law, this should be in between 7.0 and 9.5
Rinse the vial, add some drops.

It seems the color is close to 8.

kH

The next test is kH. By far the easiest to determine, since the color change dramatically. Although with a test like this, I can only figure out that it is in between 2 rounded figures. No decimals!
Rinse the vial, add 5ml and add drops till the color turns yellow. The amount of drops determines the value.

After 8 drops, the water changed color to yellow.

gH (dH)

I’m expecting here something in between 7.2 and 8.5 according to the website. Add drops to the water and wait till it turns green. The amount of drops will be your gH.

But the result is less clear than the kH test and after 11 drops, my result was.

So all in all. I’ll retry the gH test at some later time.