need idea for 'water quality measurement in aquarium'

[kumar_3k]

hello frens, im doing a project which something related with aquarium...i need some idea regard how to measure water quality in a aquarium...if u all have any idea about this pls...msg me. thanks. :lol:

 

[stevez]

I would do two things first:
A. Describe the characteristics of good water and bad water. Right now I presume that it might look bad or smell bad.

B. Think of the characteristics that you might easily measure or may not so easily measure. Conductivity might be one of the easier things to measure.

Then I'd do some experiments and or some research (reading, asking questions) so that I could find a correlation between the things I can measure (B) and the things that matter (A). What you'd love to find is an easily measured characteristic that correlates well with water condition.

 

[Optikon]

I would do two things first:
A. Describe the characteristics of good water and bad water. Right now I presume that it might look bad or smell bad.

B. Think of the characteristics that you might easily measure or may not so easily measure. Conductivity might be one of the easier things to measure.

Then I'd do some experiments and or some research (reading, asking questions) so that I could find a correlation between the things I can measure (B) and the things that matter (A). What you'd love to find is an easily measured characteristic that correlates well with water condition.

I assume we are talking about a fresh-water aquarium.
Good versus bad water does not have to do with how it smells or looks.

Bad water = low amounts of O2, high amounts of ammonia, too low of PH , water is too "Hard (G test)", high chlorine, and or water has too high, too low of sodium.


Good water = High amounts of O2, virtuallly no ammonia, moderate PH and a slight amount of sodium.

Basically, go to an aquarium store and look at one of the quality test kits that they sell. In that you will find a bunch of small chemical tests that test for some of the conditions I listed above. These are the things you need to measure to be able (with any degree of confidence) to say whether the water is good or bad.

But some of this also has to do with how the tank is populated. Some kinds of freshwater fish like/need more amounts of salt in the water than others.. and so in that case, higher salt content is not necessarily bad.

If I had to pick one thing to test for to call water good versus bad, I would test for ammonia. A fish tank that has alot of waste and poor filtering will very quickly build up highly toxic levels of ammonia in the tank which will likely kill the fish soon.