? on testing water

[kimba]

Can you test your water at any time of day or night? If I remember corectly PH reads higher in the morning, so I wasn't sure if other things tested different through out the day.

The reason I'm wondering is I lost a fish to velvet this morning. He wasn't dead long, I was in the process of getting help for him in the disease section, but he died before I could do anything.

I just got home from work and figured I'd test it since I had a loss, but wasn't sure if it would test different at night.

thanks

 

[AllSignsPointToFish]

Respiration occurs at night with the lights off, so CO2 is released into the water lowering the pH (assuming you don't have a planted sump on an opposite schedule). I think it's probably important to try to test around the same time each day to minimize the effect of systemic biases. Just my two cents.

 

[kimba]

That's basically my point, maybe I didn't ask it correctly.

So I always test my water in the morning at the same time. With the loss of my fish and maybe a crab, I'm wondering if my amonia might go up. I just got home from work and wanted to test for amonia,BUT wasn't sure if it would read any different because it is night time (like PH does).

If my amonia went up I would do the WC tonight, if not I would wait till morning.

Here is the test I just did

 

[bknapp]

If a fish died from velvet ammonia is the least of your worries. Is there any other livestock in the tank?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Total ammonia does not typically change day to night, nor do most other measurements.

The few that do cycle daily are temperature, pH, ORP, CO2, and O2.
Others may change day to night depending on usage in the tank relative to the timing of supplement additions.

 

[kimba]

I got great advise on the velvet from the diseaes section, so I am not worried about that. Now I'm worried about loosing my CUC due to amonia spikes from the loss so I came over here because I had a ? On testing.

But everything made it through the night, I will test everything again this morning and do a big water change.

Thanks

 

[kimba]

Total ammonia does not typically change day to night, nor do most other measurements.

The few that do cycle daily are temperature, pH, ORP, CO2, and O2.
Others may change day to night depending on usage in the tank relative to the timing of supplement additions.

That's what I was lokking for! Thank you!!