how long do you wait?

[tropicfishman]

how long do you wait to test your water after a water change?

 

[fish_4_all]

10 minutes if not a lot longer depending on how much attention my kids demand and how wet they get from playing in the buckets.

 

[R&L]

I like to wait 4-6 hrs

 

[7Enigma]

A couple hours to overnight. Testing really is only needed prior to a water change. *Please* let me clarify. If you know what you are adding back in or taking out (be it nitrAte/ammonia/ferts for plants), after a water change unless you made a gross error or performed a test improperly the results of that test should be very close to what you should have calculated.

Let's say you have 1.0ppm ammonia (cycling tank) and want to get the ammonia down to 0.5ppm or less. You should know right away that a 50% water change is the LEAST amount of water you have to change to get close to that value. Any less and the ammonia is higher, any more and you can calculate that as well.

Same with dosing ferts. Say your water is very soft and you want to increase your carbonate hardness (KH). You should know beforehand how much baking soda is needed before doing the change and so you can be confident that a water change will put the tank exactly where you need it.

 

[tropicfishman]

well put 7 enigma

 

[Zagz]

I wait a minimum of 2 hours,usually overnight. If I really need to know I will go with the 2 hours.

 

[TomK2]

I test before the change in a well established tank, to see how my water change regimen is keeping down the nitrates. If its too high, I have waited too long to change water.

 

[malkore]

2-4 hours is the general rule us planted guys go by when we dose a fertilizer and then want to re-test to make sure we added enough. 2 hours is the minimum it supposedly takes for the fertilizer solution to evenly distribute in a tank with normal circulation.

But 7Engima's comments about estimating the changes is quite accurate.

 

[jibboo]

test your water? what's that <sarcasm>