Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Water chemistry Alkalinity test kit problem.

Used a titrets test kit today. I followed the instructions, yet my sample never turned green, even after completely filling the test ampule. Could this mean that my water has so little alkalinity that it is off the scale? This is a brand new pond in S.Illinois, and was built in a clearing that has not been limed or fertilized in many years and had a hay crop every year, so the soil is probably pretty poor. Any ideas how to make this test kit work?

You could have bad chemicals. I have a Hach and was using it incorrectly. Call the Manufacturer. They don't want you to have problems.

I used the Chemetrics total alkalinity, 10-100, and suspect that I may have alkalinity of less than 10. Does anybody know of a way to "tweak" the testing procedure to comfirm this,such as using a different voulumn of test water? It has been much too long since I have used chemistry!

Side note: Prior to buying the titrets test kit, I went to my local soil & water conservation office for advice. I was told that it was not necessary to have alkalinity tested, that all new ponds in S. Illinois would harbor fish with no intervention.

shawneekots,

Desirable alkalinities for fish culture ponds typically range from 30-200 milligrams per liter of calcium carbonate. I don't have any information about S. Illinois surface waters accessable now, but I would suspect that you should be over the 10 mg/l mark. However, to test your theory, you would need to concentrate your sample. Measure a sample of water as accurately as possible and gently heat it to evaporate it down to 1/2 its original volume. (I would let the sample cool and sit for several hours before testing.) This will double the concentration of carbonates and may allow the test to "detect" the presence of carbonates. Use this concentrated sample to fill the test vial and proceed according to directions. Once you get the final result from the test, divide it by two and you should have a ROUGH approximation of your alkalinty.

Jason,
Welcome to the site & very good post!

Nicely put, Jason. Hang around...you'll like it here.

Jason: Thanks for the suggestion..that was one of my initial thoughts, but just didn't have confidence or expertise in what I was doing. I realise that the results will be approximate at best, but it is a start. Will try this over the weekend and will post my results.

Shawn - Also to test your kit's effectiveness and the reagents freshness, you can try adding some or a little baking soda to your test water and then test for alkalinity to make sure your test kit is working okay. Baking soda added to very low alkalinity pond water or testing some well water should both result in higher alkalinities that the kit should easily detect.

Thanks for the welcome! I've been watching the posts for sometime now, what a great exchange of information and ideas. I look forward to contributing whenever I can.

shawneekots, I'll be watching for those results!

Jason/Bill: Thanks for the input. I will make an attempt to do some testing this weekend hopefully. My idea is to try several methods. 1) to concentrate the solution as Jason suggested and test that; 2)preparing a solution with a measured amount of soda and testing that; will play around with it and try different things and see what happens. I have a friend who is a winemaker and has an electronic scale in his lab, so maybe one way or another I can come up with an approximation with some fair amount of accuracy. My main focus this weekend will be getting stucture together, although I would like to get my water quality thing in order soon as I will be stocking BG and fatheads within a month or so. Thanks all for your input.

shawnee - If you try the backing soda standard solution verification test don't use very much baking soda (no way near 1/4 teaspoon per quart of water). 1/4 t of baking soda in a liter of water puts the alkalinity somewhere over 600 ppm. Jason and I are preparing a short note about preparing a "home made" standard solution for checking relative accuracy of alkalinity test kits that we will put on the PB Fourm soon.

Bill: I will be watching for your post. I think I will sample a friend's well established pond and see what the results are, and perhaps eliminate a fault with the test's reagents. My brother works for the Illinois EPA in water quality, so I may be able to have him check also, although it does scare me somewhat dealing with the EPA (lol)! I can't say enough about how helpful this site has been in many ways.

shawneekots,

Bill Cody and I have worked up an "at home" method for you to see if your alkalinity test reagents are still good. I am going to start a new topic post under "Water Chemistry" entitled "Alkalinity Test Kit Verification" so others can find this information more easily.

Jason: Caught the new thread. I really appreciate your efforts. It has been many years since I was involved with chemistry and I knew someone had the answer for me. Thanks again. I'll keep you posted as to my results in the weeks to follow.