shipping water for testing

[graphixx]

How accurate do you think a water sample woud be if you sent it say 2 day mail to get tested. these would be very simple tests (nitrite,nitrate,ammonia,PH,Calcium) do you think the test would be skewed because of being in a bag for 2 or so days without oxygen??? It would have to be a "clean" sample from the water colum you would want as little debris in the sample as possible. how accurate do you think the tests would be????

[mutts]

i'm not sure why you would want to ship it away for those test, but i'm guessing becuase you are that you don't have the testing stuff at home.

if you did have the tests at home what i would do (that is if you are not in a hurry) is take some water out of your tank, test it, then store it in a dark bad for two days then test it again. that why you know for sure

[dakar]

Interesting question... I'm not really sure... but let's pose this question, if the sample contained any amounts of living organisms that were dependant on light for life... phytoplankton for example... would they die off in 48 hours without light? If they died would there be measurable traces of the compounds you were testing for?

[Reptoreef]

Should test as if it were in your own home... o2 would not be accurate and PH (due to digfferent levels of co2) would be off. However, calcium, alk, and all the rest should be pretty on.

[graphixx]

that is exactly what I am doing. I took a test of my tank and recorded them. and then I put a baggie of water out of the tank collected from the same area of the tank and put it in a box and sealed it and left it on my desk. I will test that water this time tonight and see the diff. I will post the diff. I will test PH, calcium, nitrite,nitrate, ammonia