Water testing with your senses

I searched for it but could not find anything solidly about this topic.

I have read so many times about test kits being unreliable and inaccurate. I've also heard that experts can sometimes smell, look or feel the water and tell the ammonia, hardness, and stuff. I don't know what else.

Now I don't have any test kits. Only the HTH chlorine and pH kits for the pool. I am not too worried about both in my tanks. I am unsure about the hardness and the ammonia readings. The reason I'm unsure about ammonia is because I don't know if my filter has enough filtration (bio-media and surface). The hardness should also be right because I want my plants to grow crazy.

I want to know if any of you have any DIY methods of testing water, if it's looking, smelling, feeling, looking at bubbles pop or using any other household items.

Thank you,
Danelle

 

its like stevie wonder flying a plane ,you flying blind unfortunately.

 

Okaaay?

Tell me more about that.

 

The trick to it is all in the preperation rituals Dude.... - get some good quality incense burning + best done on a full moon night (tidal influence important to,but that comes in later) - Aproach your tank on hands and knees chanting the Scientific names of your fish...Backwards.... When you EXACTLY 1 metre from the tank - fall to floor and roll over 3 times - whip your neck up and squint at tank through yur left eye... ALL WILL be revealed!!!..... NOT!!!

Smell is a good one - anyone will be able to detect high levels of Ammonia in their tanks....but visually - your fish should all be dead by then.... Unfortunately there is no esoteric mumbo jumbo out there that comes close to a good test kit .... for me the behaviour of my fish tell me most of what i need to know - but that only comes from staring into tanks daily for over 3 decades....lol

On an aside though.....when i work with my arms in a marine aquarium making use of synthetic sea salt - I experience severe skin reactions/rashes if the Nitrate content is high - through testing with test kits and comparing to the level of reaction - i can now be pretty accurate with a ball park figure of how high they are by degree of skin reaction.... Also by just tasting koi pond water....pretty good with guesstimating the amount of salt in it....but had to taste a LOT of yucky pond water in my life to acquire that skill ...

So @Razer2007 - no hard and fast ones - but keen observation over years and years can make you able to spot a problem...

 

For a moment I though you were serious until I read "chanting". Anyways.

Thank you Azurekoi. All makes sense.. more or less.. maybe a bit less. I'll just have to learn from experience then, and maybe invest in a test kit? There's a lot of threads about test kits so I'll go read a bit. (see - I've learnt something)

So there's do deduction you can make if bubbles on the surface don't pop within seconds? This happened and it got me thinking.

 

too much $$$

 

How willing are you to take a chance on losing your fish in place of getting the relevant Nitrite/Nitrate and Ammonia test kits? I must admit that I would rather be a "bit off" on a kit than lose all my fish through guessing.

Just my 2c worth...

 

Water test
Stick finger in tank
Finger dry = no water
Finger cold = water
Finger hot = left bowl on stove ?
Finger very cold = tank in fridge
Finger stinks=water terrible or finger in wrong hole

Fish floating dead on top =affirmative DOA synchronized bobbing
Fish dead on bottom=depression or lazy

These test are 100% accurate

 

Haha nice @Corne

@Skye01, I will get a test kit some time but I just wondered if there are ways of DIY'ing it.

 

+1 @Corne :smiley-laughing024:

If you get the Sera individual test kits it's expensive, but then you don't have a whole lot of unneccessary tests that you are not interested in. Then you buy exactly what it is that you are wanting to test for. I think Nutrafin does the same type of setup, where you can buy only the kits that you are looking for....

HTH

 

@Skye01 lol