(in case you might have missed my other responses)
I'm in north Central Ohio. we used mostly water from a 'well' ( smells
heavily on sulpher) & cistern water to fill up the pond. the cistern water
was mostly rain water (some city water trucked in, but had been a week
before).

from what others have said, the date is probably too old for the test kit.

MEANTIME..... I ordered one of the '$$$ meters' to test the water,,,, should
arrive in a few days. some have said its pretty worth it. I'll take back my
other 2 salt water test kit purchases.

Muffin btw this morning we had 'frost' arrghhhh , this after buying $$$ new
plants for bordering my pond.. luckily I covered some of them,, the others I
hope are ok,,,,,, washed them down... this after the weather report said it
was only going down to 40,,, outside thermometer said 37 ,, had to be colder
OUT in the yard though.



Not a real chem guru, imo, just married to one and therefore thru
osmosis..... I don't do too badly though with detecting poor water
quality... ;o) Speaking of which, I would have asked the same questions.
How old is the test, brand and type? Where the heck do you (the owner)
think the ammonia is coming from? Chloramine in the tap water, treated
with
a product that detoxes only chlorine will show an ammonia reading,
therefore you need a product like Amquell or similar that detoxes
chloramines (combo of chlorine and ammonia). ~ jan


See my ponds and filter design:
http://users.owt.com/jjspond/