Do You Test LFS Water?

I've generally been buying my water-change pre-mix from the same LFS.
I just assumed that it was "perfect", but today I decided to test a few things.

The Ammonia was like a 2PPM, though the Nitrate was 0.
The Salinity was also not 1.025, like they emphatically say, more like .023

So I'm wondering if this is kind of a common thing or not? I know most LFS's water isn't perfect, but the 2ppm Ammonia seems rough.
Looks like I'll be buying my pre-mixed elsewhere until I get my own water system going (If ever)

 

I don't buy mixed water, but I sure test the water when I buy a fish or coral. It will tell you what type of acclimation you need, as well as what stores have water issues. For instance, I bought a coral from a store a couple of months ago that had a dKh of 6. The coral is fine, but I don't, or won't buy from them until that is straightened out. At the time, I mentioned it to the owner, and he didn't know how to raise the alk. He got it fixed, but he had a lot of issues with corals in the meantime.

 

Very common, if I was buying LFS water I would test it every time, you don't know how well maintenance is being performed on the water equipment nor how close they are paying attention to accuracy.

 

Ya I do, my LFS water is 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, 0 nitrate, and .023 sg

 

I dont buy water but the answer is yes, yes, yes!

I have heard of horror stories of selling saltwater with no salt, or in my case when I bought my first tank they filled it all the way up and the salinity was 1.030.

I would also recommend testing TDS of all RO/DI water you buy before adding as membranes are very expensive and can need changing

 

this is one of the reasons why i went to mixing my own (the other is that it is cheaper). i was like you and assumed that their water was good. When i started testing, the salinity was not consistent. it turned out that the owner was letting the high school help mix the water and they were not using the refractometer.

 

Never bought water from the LFS, always mixed my own. I would test the water if bought from the LFS

 

I'm headed down that path, but I really don't want to buy and install an Ro/Di unit and whatnot.
So if I'm going to buy the RO/DI water, I just go the extra .50 and do the whole thing, you know.

I'm just doing like 4-5G a week on a 60G, so it's not that expensive.
But it kind of sucks to see that I've been changing out 0 Ammonia levels for water that's 2ppm. I guess it's not a lot of water for my system to flush out, but still.

 

i would definitely not add water that is showing ammonia. you don't have to install anything. i keep mine on the counter next to the sink and just attach it to the tap when i need RO water.

 

i used to but now my best friend just opened his own fish store and now dont have too..but i think people should until they get to know the people and they keep things