Site Article : Why Is Testing So Important?

[KDodds]

Why Is Testing So Important?

As an administrator on Inside Aquatics, and other forums, I hear time and time again from beginners, journeyman, and expert aquarists alike how “letting things slide” has caused things to go awry. Our entire staff here tries to stress as often as possible how important testing is, why it should be done by everyone, and why not doing so can often prove to be foolish. Before you, dear readers, think that I am stepping up on to a high horse here and about to admonish you en masse, please, read on, I can promise you that this is not your traditional chastisement.

While exacting water parameters are less of a concern in freshwater aquariums than in saltwater aquariums, they should not be disregarded altogether either. Yes, it is true that the tank and commercially bred species available to freshwater aquarists are almost limitless and have a much wider tolerance range for things like temperature, pH, and hardness than their wild brethren may have. And even wild freshwater fish are subject to more changes in their chemical and thermal environment than are reef fishes. So, yes, maintaining stability in a marine/reef aquarium is more of an issue in regards to the health of the organisms kept than it is in a freshwater aquarium. However, that is certainly not to say that testing is unimportant in a freshwater tank, quite the contrary. Freshwater species still have tolerance levels. If you are not testing, you have absolutely no idea whether or not those tolerance levels are being approached. Even more so, you have no means of detecting organic pollutants that could potentially cause harm, long term or short term, to your fish, or to their environment, or to the aesthetic appeal of your beautiful aquarium. Yes, sure, you may be able to guess the temperature of your aquarium water by touching it. But do you even do that? And if you do, how accurate are you? Are you sure the tank temperature is 75ºF and not 80ºF? Are your fingers that sensitive and your interpretations that accurate? At least be honest with yourself and test yourself. Bad things can happen just with that temperature difference alone. In itself, just this difference in temperature, a mild difference to us, can be the difference between success and failure with many species, freshwater or saltwater.

Still not convinced that you should be testing for at least the basics? That’s hardly surprising if you are not. Many people, including myself, find testing tedious and time consuming. But would you rather look at a thermometer for a second when you feed, or have your tank wiped out? Would you rather test for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate once per week, which can easily be done with dip sticks for broad range results, or experience a full tank crash that claims all, or almost all, species? True, established tanks are quite stable in terms of ammonia and nitrite. But sometimes they’re not, particularly when filter media replacement is a routine. And true, nitrate is not a proven issue, but there is evidence to suggest that it’s not good for your fishes’ long term health, even if it is not outwardly and immediately a bad thing. So what means do you have of assuring you that these nitrogenous compounds are not present and/or accumulating in the water column? Surely you can’t feel them. If you’re not testing, then the answer is simple. You have no assurance, no practical and logical means of knowing with any certainty whatsoever that things are okay.

Okay, so your tank is established, and you’re performing water changes, and you’ve never had any problems. You tested ammonia and nitrite through your tank’s cycling phase and are sure that, if you did test, that ammonia and nitrite would both not register at all on your test kit, and that nitrate will test around 40ppm or so. Fair enough that you are still sitting there and shaking your head; that you are thinking that I’m preaching, perhaps to the choir. Alkalinity, pH, and hardness are not really issues for you because you have a stable tap water source and fish that have broad tolerance ranges anyway. So, you know what phosphate levels are in your water supply? You’re totally comfortable that it is impossible for copper to be accumulating, perhaps to lethal levels, in your aquarium? You do have copper pipes, don’t you? So, how do you know? Is there some magical means by which lead, copper, potassium, etc. levels are delivered directly to your brain from your tank? Again, the answer is simple. If you do not test, you do not know what your water chemistry is like and, thanks to the hardiness of your fish, you will likely have no warning signs whatsoever if a problem should arise. In other words, you’ll only know something is amiss after it’s too late to do anything about it.

Are you still not convinced? Do you still think this is something that only beginners need to be concerned with? Do you think you can simply avoid all pitfalls through frequent water changes? Think again. For here, you have an author, an aquarist with thirty years of experience in freshwater and saltwater, who became complacent, who did not test and verify those results. You have someone before you who overlooked those simple things that should always be reliably stable, temperature and specific gravity. The importance of testing all things will be illustrated here shortly, and in drastic and dramatic fashion.

When I moved over my reef from a 180 gallon aquarium to a 450 gallon aquarium, my wife ultimately inherited the 180 gallon set up. She debated long and hard as to what to do with this aquarium, considering everything from a fish only marine tank full of species that are not “reef safe” to a Discus species tank. Eventually she settled on a “genial tank”, one that would house only Butterflyfishes of the genus Chaetodon, and only those species that are not obligate corallivores. Later, this idea was abandoned, but at the time this article was written, that was the plan. When this tank was first started, she tested almost daily and we had some amazing success with some rather difficult species. Then came the disasters, a power outage that claimed half of the fish in the tank, followed by food poisonings that claimed the other half. After letting things settle for a couple of months, she began again.

This time, ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate were fine. As well, pH and Alkalinity tested out fine. So, she began restocking. I’m pretty ashamed to admit that although this was not my tank it was at least partially in my care. You would imagine then that everything would be pretty solid and stable, especially since everything was tested. Did I say everything? Well, not everything. Above you’ll see two very important tank parameters missing, specific gravity and temperature. These are two things that, in an established tank, are often taken for granted and, as evidenced above, sometimes overlooked even by experienced aquarists. On a whim, my wife tested salinity with a refractometer and found that it was extraordinarily high at 40ppt, or a specific gravity around 1.030. That’s quite high, high even for fish from the Red Sea that often do better at higher salinities. Not only that; but, an examination of the floating thermometer that drifted to the back revealed a running temperature of 75ºF. The heater was not keeping up with the cooler room temperature in the winter. Both situations were being rectified and, in the middle of bringing salinity down I asked my wife if she had calibrated the refractometer recently. She confessed that she had not. When I did calibrate it I discovered that it was actually off by +0.001. Not too bad, and certainly close enough not to make a difference long term, but it had drifted nonetheless. And if it drifted, it could have been a lot worse.

In closing I think some important realizations and revelations have been disclosed here. Any learning experience can be a good one if it benefits you and others. Take it to heart. When was the last time you tested? Does everything look “okay”? Is that your reasoning behind not testing? What if you’re wrong? What if, in the words of TFH editor David Boruchowitz, your fish are surviving not because of your actions but despite your inaction? Can you reasonably assume that you’ll know something is going awry before it’s too late? The simple answer is that without testing you can never know. Learn from the mistakes of others, myself included, and go get those new test kits you’ve been putting off purchasing.