Canadian tire TDS meter

[Ripwoop]

I was in Canadian Tire the other day with my bro in law. He spotted a TDS meter. Had a look at it seems to be not a bad looking unit and pretty cheap ( 15bucks i think). My concern is well....it's Canadian Tire.....you guys think that it would be as accurate and other TDS meters?

Thanks

Rob

[mike31154]

TDS at CTire? Cool. Which store, i.e. where and what dept/aisle? Anywhere near Vernon?

[Ripwoop]

Yes it was in Vernon not sure what isle for sure but it was over the the car stuff. Had stuff like RV water filter replacement that kind of stuff. Sticker on the price tag saying new item.

[mike31154]

Nice, thanks for that. For 15 dollas, I'm willing to give it a go. Don't have a RO/DI unit yet anyhow, but it will be nice to see what the TDS of the Vernon tapwater is.

[justinl]

i would love to see someone buy this and compare its reading to a reading from an expensive aquarium grade TDS meter.

[mike31154]

What's an expensive one cost? As far as aquarium grade, you know what they say, as soon as a manufacturer puts the 'aquarium' label on it, the price doubles. TDS meters are used extensively outside the aquarium trade and I'm sure the basic design has been around for some time. I've never seen one in person, but from the photos etc. on various vendors' web pages they don't look that complex. Like most probe type instruments that's basically it, a metal probe(s) and the associated circuitry inside. Once you've paid the engineer to design the circuitry, the rest is gravy..... and marketing.

[new but handy]

Hey all; right now Vernon tap water up east hill is about 230 ppm
bottled water from london drugs is 5-10 ppm
and my ro unit is 1 ppm
I assume with all the boil water advisorys in the summer the tds would go way up. If I remember correctly the tds at my place in aug or sept was around 425 ppm. But I probably don't remember correctly.
my tank reading tips the scale with a flashing 999. I guess the meter won't read salty aquarium water, or there is a lot of stuff in there!

[new but handy]

I bought my tds meter online for $30 i think. It's a Intellitech don't know if it's good or not. It looks like a huge pen with 2 metal contacts and one rubber tipped one the rubber tipped one is for temp. compensation. the 2 metal ones measure the conductivity between them. The more conductivity the higher the tds

[mike31154]

Don't forget that depending on where you are in Vernon/Coldstream the source of your water will be different. Duteau Creek source is known for turbidity issues, but my water comes from the North Kal Lake intake. Good numbers for calcium/magnesium and pH isn't bad either. According to the Greater Vernon Water stats, the TDS at the North Kal Lake intake as of 14 July 08 was 238. Obviously there's some filtration/treatment downstream of that.

Additional numbers:
Hardness (CaCO3) 152
pH 7.8
Nitrate 0.069
Magnesium 9.8
Calcium 40.6

Of course these numbers are subject to change, but I would think Kal Lake is pretty stable as compared to Duteau Creek. Check the Greater Vernon Services site for info on the other sources. And I'm pretty sure the instruments used to tabulate these numbers are more accurate than anything available to the average aquarist.

[new but handy]

thats why I said up east hill. I know my water is terrible! I haven't drank it since I bought the house 3 years ago. 238 is not bad the max level for drinking water is 500ppm in canada. says health canada. (on my tds meter)!
I have to go tow a friend out of the ditch now. have fun