buffinoz

ok you test your ph your ammonia, nitrite and nitrate. you have for pots of coloured water with hazard warning labels on the test kits.
what do you you do with you chemical tests after testing ? pour them down the sink polluting the waterway harming local fish?


what should i do?

lew2000

kits for testing dissolved oxygen, pH, phosphorus, and alkalinity according to water quality guidelines can acutally be flushed down a drain with large volume of water. The other reagents (or all types)- one recomendation i have read is to place in the sun and let the water evaporate out and the solids will be left to be disposed of at a dump that handles metalic and salts wastes- according to the water quality board here - the evaporative will not contain any airborne particulates - or you can take to a designated EPA waste site - this also goes for water treated with medicines - or minerals (like copper). This is at least what i have always done. A very good LFS i used to go to(when they were in business) used to the evaporation then take to a solid waste landfill that handled disposal of waste metals. Most LFS that i am aware of (the ones that actually test thier water or medicate as a precaution) dump into drains.

Shawnie

I pour mine down the drain and rinse the tubes well..I think the hazard warning is for drinking it by humans...

lew2000

Again, though, any test kits that have cadmium (in some nitrite and low-range nitrate kits) and orthotolidine in some chlorine test kits, and any test kits for Ammonia that contain Nessler's reagent, (which contains mercury compounds) are possible carcinogens and shouldn't be flushed into the sewage system at least IMO. Some reagents also apparently contain Iodine. i usually check the MSDS of the manufacturers - not to get all EPA - to see what i can flush.

Shawnie

You have way too many big words for me LOL ...

Lucy

Me too, Shawnie.

I've never given it much thought and poured them down the drain.