My return to aquarium keeping has brought back an old nightmare: trying to test the water quality parameters while colorblind. Over the last few years probes with digital readouts have appeared but pH seems to be the only parameter worthy of the equipment cost for freshwater tanks. Has anyone seen viable tests for ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, co2, hardness, etc that doesn't use the venerable color card?
Thanks,
Jon
test kit options
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MatsP
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First of all, I would think that some of the tests may be viable even with colourblindness. The nitrate test I've got goes from "no colour", "light pink" to "bright red", which means that if you can't see the difference of green and red, you'd still see the difference, because it's just one colour (red) that goes from nothing to fairly saturated. Same thing with the nitrite test (I suspect it's the same indicator colour, just differnet reagents in the process, but I haven't checked that).
Same thing with the ammonia test, it goes from yellow to green, and I suspect you'd be able to see the difference there too, but I may be wrong on that one (I'm not colour-blind, so I can't really say).
The test-kit I've got comes from a company called Interpet in the UK, so may not be easy to find in the US, but I suspect that the reagents and indicators are the same from other companies.
Another, more "stupid" idea would be to get a digital camera (cheap and nasty will do, as long as you have sufficient light), and take a picture of the sample & colour chart, then check with photoshop or something like that which colour it matches on the scale... In photoediting software, such as photoshop, you can separate out the red, green and blue colours of the picture, and show each colour in b&w, so you should be able to determine which colour it is without actually being able to see the colour.
Hardness-meters are available at reasonable prices, I think. Much less convinced on NO2, NO3, etc.
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Mats
Same thing with the ammonia test, it goes from yellow to green, and I suspect you'd be able to see the difference there too, but I may be wrong on that one (I'm not colour-blind, so I can't really say).
The test-kit I've got comes from a company called Interpet in the UK, so may not be easy to find in the US, but I suspect that the reagents and indicators are the same from other companies.
Another, more "stupid" idea would be to get a digital camera (cheap and nasty will do, as long as you have sufficient light), and take a picture of the sample & colour chart, then check with photoshop or something like that which colour it matches on the scale... In photoediting software, such as photoshop, you can separate out the red, green and blue colours of the picture, and show each colour in b&w, so you should be able to determine which colour it is without actually being able to see the colour.
Hardness-meters are available at reasonable prices, I think. Much less convinced on NO2, NO3, etc.
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Mats