Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Water chemistry PH tester

In almost all ponds pH is very rarely a problem. I typicaly do not worry about pH unless the pond is unusually clear (vis 10-20ft) in very poor acidic soils and or with high humic or leaf content to produce heavy brown water stain which MAY & only may indicate low pH. It is extremly rare in my experiences to see a pond with low water transparancy (vis 2-3ft) and low pH. Turbid pond water (vis 2-3ft) almost always tests adequate pH.

A much more important character or perameter to measure is akalinity if you are interested in having a pond with good natural producivity which means a large food chain base, thus more natural fish production. Do a search for alkalinity test or alkalinity test kit. There has been some good discussion about what type of simple test kit will provide fairly good results. Also search for- Papond -he is a retired chemist and has posted about simple test kits. Alkalinity needs to be close to or above 50 to get good plankton blooms. Low pH can indicate or point to a tendency toward low alkalinity. But you will not know this as FACT UNLESS you mesure the alkalinity; so you might as well measure alkalinity as the 1st test. pH can vary much more during a 24 hr period than alkalinity which tends to be relatively or pretty stable over the seasons.