Sensor for water quality.

[Suresh Mali]

Hi,

I have a problem with water supply. Sometimes the water has very bad odor and cannot be used. The only way to check is smell the water. Now when the water supply is on and filling overhead tanks, at beginning the water smells OK, but you don't know when bad water will start flowing. For now we do random checks every now and then to ensure, but sometimes we miss and it gets pumped up contaminating the entire tank. The only way is to drain the tank and refill.

Is there a sensor that can be used to check the water quality. I read some blogs suggesting use of IR and photo diode and reading the values of photo diode. This could be helpful when there is dirt in water but not smell. Please let me know if any one has any idea how this can be achieved.

Thanks for reading.