Do It In Daylight!

I just tested my pH with a "Red Sea" pH & Alk kit and looked at the sample using the fluorescent sump light. The sample is GREEN. It isn't the olive green that represents 8.0 on the scale, it is a sickly lighter green that doesn't even show on the color chart.
So I walk the sample into the kitchen and, under the incandescent lighting, it's a nice purple around 8.2 - 8.4 range.

For the sake of science, I wander around the house comparing different fluorescents , from 3k to 6.5k and they all produce a green color sample.

All the incandescent lamps are showing the sample as being purple.

So I check the instruction sheet, to see if they mention to use a particular light source, and they just say to "hold the sample up in front of a white background"!

I could see someone dumping a whole lot of chemicals into what was (up to that point) balanced water just because they held the sample up to a fluorescent light and figured there had to be a problem.

 

yeah, flourescent lights will do that, I always compare mine under my lizards incandesent heat lamp(since it is made to represent sunlight) and since its right beside my nano it works perfect...

 

my lfs guy told me that test kit was junk so i'm using salifert now.i found the ph test they give you ok though.

 

Retested in daylight

I ran the test again using sunlight as the "final word". It showed a lower reading than the incandescent lighting, higher than fluorescent.

Final tally:

Fluorescents : off the scale, no possible color to match on the sample chip.

Incandescents :read higher than daylight (pH=8.4)

Daylight: you've got to believe someone- (pH=8.0)

 

I always go to a window or my french door and use the sunlight as my light source.

 

I found out through this that "DAYLIGHT" bulbs don't really match daylight coloring.
No more evening water testing!

 

No matter how hard we try, we'll never match mother nature, in every sense.