pH color deciphering

[waterbear]

What is your chlorine level? Sounds like you are getting chlorine interferance in your rainbow kit. The phenol red in the Taylor kit has a chlorine neutralizer included in the reagent and will work with chlorine levels up to about 15 ppm. the rainbow phenol red does not. What is happening is the phenol red in the rainbow kit is being converted to chlorophenol red which tests the pH range of 4.6 to 6.8 with the same color changes as phenol red has from 6.8 to 8.2 so the purple color you are seeing means the pH is above 6.8! Yellow-orange color should put your pH in the neighborhood of 7.2-7.4. Orange is about 7.4-7.5. Hope this helps.