The main factor in successful fish keeping lies in the maintenance of good water quality; pH, ammonia and nitrite levels in the pond should be checked regularly, weekly in a new pond and fortnightly in an established mature pond. The purpose of regular water testing is that poor water chemistry will cause stress to your fish. As the stress levels of fish increase their immunity can decrease making your fish susceptible to pathogenic infections and poor health, and an unchecked build up of nitrate will only fuel the algae growth in your pond.
The NT Labs Pondlab 200 Multi-test Kit comprises over 200 tests of the 6 key parameters to test in your pond. Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, pH, GH and KH. All the tests are liquid drop tests from a dropper bottle so all the drops are the same size. All you have to do is add your aquarium water to the test tube and count the drops needed, simple.
The back of the box details clear pictorial instructions so you can see what to do from the start. A booklet of colour coded stickers is provided to label both the test tubes and test tube lids so you always conduct the same test in the same test tube. The reason for this? Well for example the GH reagents may contaminate the test tube and could give you a false reading if you were to conduct an ammonia test in the same tube. What is ammonia?
Ammonia is excreted by the fish as a waste product. It is extremely toxic to the fish, and is broken down into less toxic nitrite by the beneficial bacteria in the filter of your pond.
Why test for ammonia?
Any ammonia present in the pond water will cause major health problems for the fish. Toxic ammonia can build up in ponds where there are not sufficient beneficial filter bacteria to deal with the total waste from all the fish in the pond. This situation can arise in new ponds, when new fish are added, when the filter bacteria have been disrupted (e.g during cleaning), or during accidental mis-dosing of pond medications.
