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.

API Test Kit for Ammonia, Nitrate & Nitrite

Liquid Test Kit for Ammonia, Nitrate & Nitrite

Liquid Test Kit for General Hardness & Carbonate Hardness

Test Kit for Monitoring Copper in Water

Test Kit for Monitoring Iron in Water

Test Kit for Monitoring Phosphates in Water

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.

Determining the Chlorination System Your Water Supplier Uses

Chlorine Smell Test: In general, water containing only chloramines gives off a much more objectionable odor than water containing a free chlorine residual. While true that a free chlorine system generates chloramines as the free chlorine gets used up fighting whatever biological contaminants it encounters, the amount of odor given off by those chloramines will typically not surpass the amount of odor given off by water treated solely with chloramines.

Home Water Testing: While no test strip exists to check JUST the chloramine concentration in water, one does exist to check both the Free Chlorine Residual and the Total Chlorine Residual: The WaterWorks^tm 2 Free & Total Chlorine Strip accurately measures both parameters with a single water quality test strip.

WaterWorks^tm 2 Free and Total Chlorine Home Water Test Kit

• If the free chlorine test area shows color AND the total chlorine test area shows color, then your water supplier most likely uses free chlorine as its primary disinfectant.

• If the free chlorine test area does not show color BUT the total chlorine test area does not show color, then your water supplier most likely uses chloramines as its primary disinfectant.

Although the above testing method will yield quality results, calling your local water supplier will get you the same information.

Should you wish to test for the presence of just free chlorine or just total chlorine in drinking water, the following simple test strips will yield fast, accurate and reliable results in under a minute:

• Total Chlorine Test Strip (480010)
• Free Chlorine Test Strip (481026)

(Free Chlorine) + (Combined Chlorine) = (Total Chlorine)

Free Chlorine: Typically your main sanitizing/disinfecting agent and sometimes referred to as ‘available chlorine’. In most cases people try to keep a free chlorine residual in their water to act as a buffer against biological contaminants. Chemically speaking this is the amount of hypochlorous acid and hypochlorite ion in solution. find free chlorine test strips

Combined Chlorine: The resulting compound when free chlorine molecules interact with biological contaminants containing Nitrogen which most people refer to as ‘chloramines’. You could also refer to combined chlorine as ‘used free chlorine’, but keep in mind that it still does have the abiity to act as a sanitizer/disinfectant… just not nearly as effectively.  find total chlorine test strips

Total Chlorine: The sum of all free, ‘available’, combined, and ‘used’ chlorine in solution.  find total chlorine test strips

Testing for Free & Total Chlorine at the Same Time?

The traditional testing method for chlorine residuals in water involves the use of a reagent system known as DPD that involves two separate chemical mixing procedures.

The WaterWorks 2 Free & Total Chlorine Test Strips have a total test time of around 30 seconds and detect both free and total concentrations in water in the following range: 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 1.0, 2.5, 5.0 ppm.

If you need to test chlorine levels in your water, then we definitely suggest checking out the chlorine testing convenience and affordability of WaterWorks 2 Free & Total Chlorine Test Strips.

Total Chlorine
Test Strips

WaterWorks 2 Test Strips
Free & Total Chlorine

SenSafe Free Chlorine
Water Check
EPA Approved Product

Many people do not know that chlorine in water comes in three basic varieties: Free, Combined and Total.

• Picture free chlorine as a 100% ready-for action superhero that cannot wait to wipe out just about any biological contaminant it encounters. It has both hands free and ready to fight.
• Picture combined chlorine as that very same superhero after it wrestled and defeated a biological contaminant. The two ‘locked horns’ and now cannot separate despite the superhero having won the fight. The superhero can still attack other biologicals, but think of it now as having only one of its hands free to attack other biologicals… and thus it cannot fight as effectively.

OK, So What is This Total Chlorine?

Simply put, total chlorine is the sum of the free chlorine plus combined (used) chlorine in the water. See the following equation:

    (Free Chlorine) + (Combined Chlorine) = Total Chlorine

The USEPA has set the Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) for TOTAL chlorine in potable water at 4.0 ppm.

This means water dispensed by a water system must contain less than 4.0 ppm total chlorine… or the system is in violation of Federal Law and subject to getting fined and/or shut down by the USEPA if their total chlorine readings continue to exceed Federal Guidelines.

Testing for Free/Total Chlorine?

As a general rule, most water treatment facilities use a method called “DPD Testing” to determine the chlorine concentrations in drinking water. Other methods for testing exist, though most are not officially approved by the USEPA and may not be used for reporting purposes.

As of Spring 2007, though, the USEPA began allowing states to approve the use of an alternate, yet equal, faster method called SenSafe(tm) Free Chlorine Water Check when testing for free chlorine residual.

That same company also manufactures a dip-n-read test strip for total chlorine referenced by the USEPA only as a screening method for total chlorine concentrations in wastewater. [see Federal Register / Vol. 72 No. 47 / Monday, March 12, 2007 / Rules and Regulations]

Testing for Combined Chlorine?

You may also see combined chlorine called ‘chloramines’ in certain literature and some water systems actually use them to sanitize/disinfect the water they supply. Though not as effective a killing tool as free chlorine, they do get the job done.

If you wish to test for chloramines, you only need to perform two very simple tests and do some really easy subtraction:

1. Use a product to test for total chlorine.
2. Use a second product to test for free chlorine
3. Subracting the free chlorine value from the total chlorine value will give you the combined chlorine concentration in your drinking water.