TDS Conversion Factor

[MichaelJ]

@Geoffrey Rea is that 500TDS reading 'Total Dissolved Steroids'! WOW!

Ha! I had well over 1500 ppm at one point in both my tanks...only discovered this when I got a TDS meter ... 1500+ that's almost considered brackish water territory... Surprisingly, fish and plants did well, but I don't think the situation would have been sustainable. The short story is that I only did 20% WC weekly at that time with occasional lapses and I had the remineralization dosing wrong for my pure RO water I did at that time (was paying too much attention to KH and pH in particular). I was essentially piling on to my TDS every week...

Cheers,
Michael

 

[Geoffrey Rea]

@Geoffrey Rea is that 500TDS reading 'Total Dissolved Steroids'! WOW!

The TDS monitoring with the tap water here is most useful in the summer. They scrub the nitrate sometimes and you’ll notice a significant drop with the incoming water supply. The 500ppm is a summer feature, probably due to agricultural run off. In the winter it will be 400-420ppm on average. Share the same water supply as Aquarium Gardens.

It’s sort of meaningless without knowing what composition you can expect from your water provider via a water report, or getting an ICP water analysis done.