- Take the box with the little jars and syringes to the sink from the white container. Rinse the jars, lids, spoons and syringes you want to use (you will need some of them) and dry them well with paper towels.
- Take the bigger box full of little cardboard boxes containing chemicals to test the number of different microelements in the sample water. Usually, we monitor NH4 (very important!), N02, N03, K, Ca, Fe, Po4, O2. Take the cardboard boxes for the tests you want to do out of bigger the box. Have a look at the dates on the boxes - only use chemicals that are not expired yet.
- Take the plastic watering can, rinse it at the sink to clean it, and use it to take out some sample water from the system. We normally test the water quality in one fish tank to make sure the fish are fine. Since we installed the big-parts-filter (big blue barrel in front of tank 5), we also try to monitor the water quality directly after the poo filter (the water that comes out of the thinner, black tube) sump tank) to see whether we filter out important elements.
- You will find instruction about how to run each test inside of each cardboard box. The results for some of them are represented with colours and are very easy to understand. For the results of some of them, you will have to count drops of chemicals you add until the colour of the solution changes.
- Use a piece of paper to note all the results of the tests you run. Put them into the digital data logging form later (usually always open on one tablet close to the fish container door - be patient with the slow system!). You can also put the paper with your notes into the chapter „Filled Forms“ within this folder.
- Have a look at the instruction papers of each test to interpret the results. If some of the measured elements seem to have an alarming amount (either too high or too low), discuss with your colleagues what to do about it. In case the amount of iron, potassium or calcium is too low, add them (> see „adding iron, potassium, calcium, ...“).
- Rinse all the jars, spoons, syringes and lids you used to run the test using fresh water and the small brushes. Dry them and put everything back in their original place.
- If you have leftovers from the sample water, use it, for example, to water the grow beds.