Ph meter

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Just got this and stuck it in the tap water and it is telling me this, I have no clue all help welcome the instructions might as well be in German
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Those will be your buffer solutions for calibrating the meter. You dissolve each of them in a quantity (250ml?) of distilled water and then dip your meter in at least 2 of them. There is usually a button on the meter for calibration (“Cal”?). As long as you keep them clean and with a well fitting lid you can keep the solutions for repeated use.
 
Did you read the instructions for calibration? Because the first value for tap water makes much more sense than the second. Water distributors will try to make their water have a ph of greater than 7.

If you do one calibration, then you should do the one for pH 7.0, because that is the middle of the scale.

Edit: apparently, that would in this case be to calibrate to pH 6.86 (these guys use weird values for calibration).
 
You did use distilled water to make up your buffer solutions didn’t you?

For my meter you dip the meter in the first buffer, press and hold the “Cal” button for about 5 seconds. The meter displays the pH and flashes the display on and off a few times. Then rinse off the meter, dip it in the second solution, again press and hold “Cal” for 5 seconds. The display shows the pH and flashes. Rinse off the meter. Done.
 
I just bought a similar PH meter but I can’t find any where to buy distilled water. Any suggestions? Thanks.
 
It's probably worth looking up your water company's website, they should have the facility to look up the quarterly water report for your postcode (sometimes pH comes under "hydrogen ions", sometimes under "acidity", sometimes "pH"). That should at least give you an idea of what pH to expect - 7.9 is pretty typical for a chalky area, 6.1 seems low.

The science of pH measurement gets complicated, they're quite fragile things, but for these basic meters you typically have two calibration buffers which should always maintain a known pH within reason as long as you don't overwhelm them with a bottle of battery acid etc. So if you know the meter is reading 6.86 in a 6.86 buffer, and 4.01 in a 4.01 buffer. then it should be pretty reliable between those two points, even if you can't guarantee outside it - fancier meters will have a third buffer of pH10 or so to extend the "reliable" range.

You can get distilled water for irons, or RO water from aquarium places - it all works.
 
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