For those who would like a definition of pH and an explanation of why testing for pH matters, take a look at one of our previous blog entries: “Testing for pH Levels and Why pH Matters“.

Since we have not, as of yet, posted a blog entry specifically about alkalinity, we figure we will take care of that matter right now by including a basic definition of alkalinity in this blog entry:

In a nutshell, alkalinity refers to water’s ability to resist sudden changes to its pH and to measure alkalinity we measure the amount of CaCO₃ in the water. In nature CaCO₃ typically comes from rocks and soil that water passes over in its travels.

Pool and spa owners will add CaCO₃, sometimes referred to as “Alkalinity Increaser, to counteract the basic (high pH) nature of liquid chlorine and/or the acidic (low pH) nature of most chlorine tablets and sticks.

Since pH and alkalinity have such a close relationship, and it would make sense to measure one if you planned to measure the other, the makers of the WaterWorks brand of water quality test strips created the pH and Total Alkalinity Test Strip which measures both water quality parameters simultaneously and gives accurate, repeatable results in under 30 seconds.

Directions:

1. Dip 1 test strip into a water sample for 10 seconds, then remove.
2. Immediately match pH color, then match alkalinity test pad color.

Detection Levels:

• pH: 6.0, 6.5, 7.0, 7.5, 8.0, 8.5, 9.0
• Total Alkalinity: 0, 80, 120, 180, 240, 360 ppm (mg/L)

While very critical to monitor water quality parameters such as pH, what happens when one group’s tests indicate that a body of water has a ‘problem’ with its pH level and another group’s readings indicate the exact opposite?

People in Gastonia, NC will get the chance to live out that exact scenario in the coming weeks.

Gastonia’s resident water treatment guru is questioning a state study that has added Mountain Island Lake to a list of “impaired” waterways.

The N.C. Division of Water Quality recently identified 21 lakes and streams that have undesirable pH levels. Mountain Island Lake — the main water source for Gastonia and Charlotte — was one of eight sections of the Catawba River to make the list.

State officials took 34 water samples in the lake between 2006 and 2008, and four of those showed the water was slightly acidic. Acidic water isn’t harmful to drink, though it threatens fish and other aquatic life.

But Ed Cross, Gastonia’s division manager of water treatment, said the state’s findings stand in stark contrast to what local readings have shown for more than a decade.

“I was kind of stunned by it myself,” Cross said Wednesday. “We’ve got a summary of 12 years worth of testing data, and there’s no indication of this anywhere.”

The federal Clean Water Act requires that states evaluate public waterways every two years to ensure they are safe for boating and swimming, drinking or other uses. That spurred the study from 2006 to 2008, said Susan Massengale of the Division of Water Quality.

Scientists determine whether water is acidic or basic using pH readings. Pure water is neutral, with a pH of 7. Levels above that are alkaline, while readings below it are acidic.

Of the 34 samples taken from Mountain Island Lake, four came back with a pH level slightly below 6, with the lowest at 5.7. By federal law, if 10 percent or more of the samples are outside the desired threshold, the waterway is deemed “impaired,” Massengale said.

Four out of 34 equates to 11 percent, meaning Mountain Island Lake barely made the impaired list, she said.

“So that’s when we start looking at possible sources of impairment,” said Massengale. “At this point, we’re seeing these acidic results in other mountainous areas of North Carolina.”

Acid rain and increased runoff from construction and development may have caused the higher acidity in some areas, she said. The recent, regional drought may have also been to blame.

But the findings still perplex Cross. Gastonia takes a minimum of three water samples a day from the lake, which has amounted to several thousand samples over the last 12 years, he said. All of the samples are tested by a certified laboratory with standardized, calibrated instruments, he said.

Based on those readings, the lake’s average pH level has ranged between 7.1 and 7.5 — slightly alkaline.

“I don’t know, if you hold 34 samples in your left hand and 10,000 in your right hand, whether you judge them equally,” Cross said.

Officials with Charlotte’s water treatment division could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But Cross said he plans to make sure state leaders know of the discrepancy in testing data, before the recent figures are accepted as fact.

“I can assure you we will file our data and comments,” he said.

Massengale said she can only vouch for what the state found. While the levels don’t indicate an immediate health risk, officials will continue trying to determine the cause, she said.

“All I know is we’ve got 34 data points and four of them show the pH was low,” she said. “Barely low by the standard, but low.

“We need to pay attention to that.” ( source )

So… two knowledgeable groups have conflicting data about the waterway’s pH levels. Now what? We predict that a number of meetings will take place and in the end that no one on either side will come out smelling like roses.

The waterway, on the other hand, will most likely not receive any of the attention needed to figure out WHY pH levels came up differently for the two groups.

In the end, and as usual, ultimate responsibility for monitoring the quality of the water people drink, bathe in, swim in, and use for many other purposes falls on the end users.

If we had a dollar for every time we got asked the first question below, we’d all drive expensive cars and dine on lobster for lunch… instead of taking the bus and eating Ramen Noodles every day.

T_RadioMan in Clifton Park, NY asked…

Why do I always get staining in my sinks? Is my well water polluted? Is it dangerous?

Slow down, killer. Slow down. One question about the quality of your water at a time, OK?

Staining… of fixtures often happens when water contains dissolved metals. Have you tested your water for metals?

• Iron in Water — may leave brown, yellow and/or orange stains in sinks and on fixtures

• Manganese in Water — may leave dark brown, black or deep purple stains in sinks and on fixtures

• Copper in Water — may leave blue, green or dark stains in sinks and on fixtures

Polluted… drinking water may not ever show any signs of contamination. Only testing the water will tell you if your water contains dangerous contaminants and if you know nothing about the quality of the water, it definitely makes sense to opt for a thorough water quality analysis conducted by a qualified laboratory such as National Testing Laboratories or a local laboratory w/ similar qualifications.

National Testing Laboratories offers three levels of certified drinking water testing and their customers get test results within two weeks.

• WaterTest Basic tests for 27 water quality parameters

• WaterCheck test for 83 water quality parameters

• WaterCheck w/ Pesticides tests for 97 water quality parameters

Dangerous… water also may not show any obvious signs of it malignant nature so having testing performed by a qualified laboratory to find out if the water contains harmful contaminants or a dangerously low/high pH makes sense if you know nothing about the water and have ‘problems’ with it such as skin irritation, staining of fixtures, foul odor, nasty taste, or unexplainable recurring gastrointestinal troubles.

To conclude, T_RadioMan, you really won’t ever know the cause of your water woes until you get that water of yours checked out by a certified water testing laboratory.

Some people live in older homes where the plumbing may still contain copper and/or lead pipes. If the water entering those residences has a low pH value, meaning the water is acidic, the possibility definitely exists that the water may corrode the piping and pull dissolved and potentially dangerous amounts of metals into itself.

Maximum Contaminant Levels

For copper, the USEPA suggests that people ingest drinking water containing no more than 1.3ppm (mg/L) of free dissolved copper. Health officials have determined that short term exposure to high levels of dissolved copper in drinking water can cause gastrointestinal distress and that long term exposure can result in liver and/or kidney damage.

When it comes to maximum contaminant level for lead in drinking water, the USEPA set the limit at 15ppb. Routinely ingesting higher quantities of lead in water may result in delays in physical or mental development and in infants and children. Problems with attention span have also resulted. In the case of adults ingesting higher than acceptable amounts of lead in drinking water, kidney problems and high blood pressure have resulted.

Acidic Water Causes Other Problems

Not treating, or correcting the pH of, acidic water can result in costly corrosion problems in plumbing and it may also drastically shorten the life expectancies equipment that uses water such as dishwashers, washing machines, hot water heaters, etc.

Treating Acidic Water

If you have acidic water and wish to treat it, installing a device such as a Whole House Acid Neutralizing Water Filter will help to keep your water’s pH level in an acceptable range.

The Acid Neutralizing Water Filter works by slowly dissolving calcium carbonate into water with a pH level below 6.8. The dissolved calcium carbonate acts as a pH increaser.

According to the manufacturer of this unit, Crystal Quest, the calcium carbonate media in the tank will last approximately 2 to 3 years and the system has a backwash feature to help prevent compaction which would impede the flow of water through the system.

For more information on the Whole House Acid Neutralizing Water Filter manufactured by Crystal Quest, visit the FilterWater.Com web site.

TeddyGurl recently asked,

I want to know more about the water parameter tests such as turbidity, pH, chlorine, and calcium.

What is the common testing method that should be done?

Thank you for your question TeddyGurl. We will address each part of your inquiry separately.

Turbidity refers to the level of cloudiness or haziness in a liquid caused by concentrations of small particles, also known as suspended solids. The higher the concentration of these particles, the greater the turbidity of the liquid and more cloudy it appears.

To measure turbidity, one typically uses a meter of some sort. The eXact Water Testing Meter has a detection range of 3 to 580 NTU.

For the record, water with a turbidity reading of around 500 NTU will appear milky to the naked eye and water with a turbidity reading of around 50 NTU will appear cloudy, but still allow light to pass through.

pH refers to the measure of how acidic or basic a solution is. Its scale runs from 0.0 to 14.0 with 7.0 as its neutral (not acidic and not basic) value. Solutions with pH values greater than 7.0 get labeled as basic and solutions with pH values less than 7.0 get labeled as acidic.

To measure pH, one has several options: liquid/powder/tablet based test kits, test strips and electronic meters.

Chlorine gets added to drinking water as a disinfectant (an antimicrobial agent used on non-living objects to eradicate and destroy microorganisms which can cause infection). The United States Environmental Agency has set the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for chlorine at 4.0 ppm (parts per million), or 4.0 mg/L (milligrams per liter).

When testing for chlorine in water, one can choose between liquid/powder/tablet based test kits, test strips and electronic meters.

Calcium has the atomic number of 20 and ranks as the fifth most abundant element in the Earth’s crust. When it comes to drinking water, calcium acts to ‘harden’ the water and so therefore when one measures the hardness of water, one actually measures the calcium (and magnesium to a lesser extent) concentration in the water.

To measure the calcium content in water, one can choose between liquid/powder/tablet based test kits, test strips and electronic meters.

Spencer wrote in and asked…

Hello,

I am looking for an all-in-one home test kit that will show ppm levels. I thought I saw a product that was around $30 but now I can’t find the web-site.

Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks,

Spencer

Thank you for your question, Spencer. For the most part all drinking water test kits (worth buying) should the majority of their results in parts per million, with the exception of some tests for metals which report their results in parts per billion. Example: Heavy Metals Check.

Getting to the rest of your question, a brand of home water test kits called WaterSafe manufactures a test kit called the All-in-One and it tests drinking water for the following: Bacteria, Lead, Pesticides (atrazine & Simazine), Iron, Total Chlorine, Total Hardness, pH, and Nitrates/Nitrites.

In our experience the average consumer can pick up the WaterSafe All-in-One Water Test Kit for around $20 from several online vendors including, but not limited to, the following:

• Filters Fast (www.filtersfast.com) — WaterSafe All-in-One Test Kit

• Filter Water (www.filterwater.com) — WaterSafe All-in-One Test Kit

Hopefully we have given you the information you asked for. In the event that you did not mean the WaterSafe All-in-One Water Test Kit specifically, and instead used the term ‘all-in-one’ in a more general manner, you may want to take a look at another brand of home water test kits: SenSafe.

Under the SenSafe brand you will find test kits such as the Drinking Water Quality Test Kit which typically costs a little bit more than the WaterSafe All-in-One Water Test Kit, but tests for additional parameters: Copper, Free Chlorine, Sulfate, Chloride and Hydrogen Sulfide (rotten egg smell).

You can usually find the Drinking Water Quality Test Kit by SenSafe selling online for around $32 to $36 depending upon where you look.

Feel free to contact us again, Spencer, if you have any other water quality testing questions!

Looking for a verstile, lightweight, waterproof water quality testing meter? Need an EPA Compliant testing meter for chlorine testing?

Introducing a new photometer using a patented method and technologies that offer faster, safer, easier, and more precise water testing.
The eXact Micro 7+ offers seven modes which provide direct read capabilities for Total Alkalinity, Bromine, Calcium Hardness, Free Chlorine, Total Chlorine, Copper, Ozone, Permanganate, pH, and % Transmission – which allows for testing of an additional 17 parameters.

The eXact Micro 7+ can measure a total of up to 26 parameters and provides EPA Compliant testing method for both Free & Total Chlorine when used with DPD chemistry.

In need of replacement reagentstrip bottles for your eXact Micro 7+ Water Quality Testing Meter?

Did you know that tree leaves can cause water quality ‘issues’?

Leaves contain various acids which can throw off the water’s pH. Sometimes even the slightest change in pH can have a dramatic effect on the aquatic ecosystem and result in species of plants and/or fish no longer thriving or worse yet, dying off entirely.

Fallen leaves contain nutrients that can contribute to the growth and flourishing of algae blooms in ponds, lakes, rivers, streams, etc. Over the course of their lifetime these blooms can have detrimental effects on the ecosystem such as reducing the oxygen level in the water. Without oxygen in the water other types of aquatic life such as fish and other plants cannot live.

“Where you rake them (leaves) could have a major impact on water quality and the environment,” said Chad Cook, natural resource educator for the University of Wisconsin-Extension.

He said leaves that are raked into the street or roadway could blow away and end up plugging storm sewer drains or, worse yet, polluting Lake Winnebago with nutrients that cause algae blooms and rob oxygen from the water.

Cook said a major concern is phosphorous from leaves, which serves as a fertilizer for plants and algae living in the water.

“What happens is we see algae blooms every year when there’s sunshine and warm weather in the summer,” said Cook, whose office is in the James P. Coughlin Center in Oshkosh. “Algae blooms makes the water green and if it piles up the blooms can decay and smell. As it decays, it can use up the oxygen in the water that could have been used by fish. That’s when you might see dead fish floating in algae.”

He said there are concerns for humans and animals from blue-green algae.

“It’s a type of algae that contains toxins and if those toxins are in a great enough quantity they can impact humans who wade or swim in the water,” Cook said. “A couple of days later they can have a rash.”

He said dogs and other animals that swim in the lake could ingest water with algae.

“Every year in Wisconsin there’s a dog or two who is in the water and dies and one of the likely causes is ingesting blue-green water from an algae bloom,” Cook said.

He said leaves can also plug up storm sewer drains. Clogged drains, he said, can lead to street flooding. ( source )

It never ceases to amaze us how so many simple things such as the improper disposal of leaves can have an adverse effects on the environment.

A Rock Hill, SC company called Industrial Test Systems, Inc. manufactures a water quality test kit which they call the COMPLETE Water Quality Test Kit and several people have asked us for a list of the parameters it can test for.

Before we provide you with the list of items contained by the COMPLETE Water Quality Test Kit, please remember that NO at-home or do-it-yourself water quality test kit will give you a total understanding of your water’s contaminant levels and that only water analysis performed by a certified water testing laboratory will tell the full story.

Consumers should use water quality test kits such as the COMPLETE Water Quality Test Kit and comparable water testing kits such as the SenSafe Water Quality Test Kit and WaterSafe All-in-One Water Test Kit as screening tools only.

COMPLETE Water Quality Test Kit contains: 2 tests for each parameter except bacteria.

• Test for Iron in 2 Minutes
• Test for Copper in 30 Seconds
• Test for Chloride in 40 Seconds
• Test for Nitrate & Nitrite as N in 1 Minute
• Test for pH in 20 Seconds
• Test for Total Alkalinity in 20 Seconds
• Test for Total Chlorine in 20 Seconds
• Test for Total Hardness in 20 Seconds
• Test for Free Chlorine in 10 Seconds
• Test for Sulfate in 40 Seconds
• Test for Hydrogen Sulfide in 30 Seconds
• Test for Coliform Bacteria presence/absence in 48 Hours

You can find the COMPLETE Water Quality Test Kit, and other water quality test kits, available for immediate shipping from online retailers such as FiltersFast.Com and TestProducts.Com.

Several people have asked why we have not talked about water… in aquariums. No particular reason, really, other than not enough people had asked for that sort of information — until now.

Many people have the wrong idea about how much maintenance and testing a healthy aquarium requires. Notice we said, “healthy.”

An UNhealthy aquarium requires next to no maintenance. Simply add water to the tank, throw in some fish, wait for fish to die, scoop up dead fish, re-stock tank with live fish, and repeat the last two steps until common sense kicks in.

Eventually people catch on to the fact that an aquarium needs more attention than just adding fish and dumping in food once in a while. It takes some people longer than others to figure that out, true, but we can discuss that topic another time. For right now let’s stick to the topic at-hand: Testing Aquarium Water so that your fish don’t keep going belly up.

As you can see from the above test kits, you will have to test for a number different water parameters if you want to keep your fish healthy, happy and alive. Thankfully most aquarium test kits these days come with easy-to-follow instructions and the average person can complete the testing in just a few minutes.

Which water parameters matter most? Hard to say, but many pond and aquarium experts agree that a person ought to keep a close eye on the following water quality parameters if they hope to have clean, healthy water for their fish to live in:

• Ammonia Levels — As disgusting as it sounds to us, fish live in their own waste products, one of which is ammonia. Excessive amounts of ammonia result in respiratory problems for fish and if left untreated the fish will eventually stop breathing and die.
• Chlorine/Chloramines Levels — Extremely toxic to fish and pretty much all aquatic life even in small amounts. When adding fresh water to an aquarium, always make sure to test for and remove any and all traces of chlorine and chloramines.
• Nitrite Levels — When ammonia breaks down it forms nitrites, another very toxic compound which can cause respiratory distress in, and eventually the death of, fish.
• pH Levels — It ought to come as no surprise that fish don’t want to swim around in extremely acidic or basic water any more than you would want someone pouring hydrochloric acid or concentrated lye onto your skin. One thing to remember, though, about pH: Not all fish prefer the exact same pH so when choosing your fish, read up on their preferred water conditions — or risk killing some of your fish slowly and painfully.