Ammonia Alert is an innovative color device for continuously detecting and monitoring toxic free ammonia. A sensor changes reversibly from yellow to green to blue, relative to the ammonia concentration. No test kits, chemicals, or procedures are needed. The device detects less than 0.05 mg/L (ppm) free ammonia and alerts you to the #1 killer before any sign of stress. It lasts over a year. Marine or freshwater use.
I am cycling (fishless) a tank for Mbunas and wanted something to let me know when the ammonia levels were getting low so I could add more ammonia so I bought this.
My ammonia has been up to 6ppm (API liquid test kit) and NOTHING registers. When I hold it over an pure ammonia bottle it turns a very slight tint of blue and that's it.
It has been in the tank for over 2 weeks with no results. I may contact Seachem and see if they want to send another one out for a second try.
I used this when intially cycling a tank. It NEVER registered ammonia, even as I was getting up to .5 ppm on the API tests. I did test the thing over some window cleaner and it responded immediately, but not to anything in the tank. I threw it away.
I would not put the life of my fish in the hands of this device, but it is a nice security while cycling to make sure you maybe catch a spike before your fish die. Mine did change color to like blue for a week while I was fish less cycling.
There are a few reasons every review is love it or hate it.
It does take from several days to a week to start working.
The biggest catch is that it works badly if your pH is under 7, and under 6.5 it does not seem to work at all.
If you have a pH over 7, this is a great product and can save your tank. It was a big help with cycling my tank, and lets you know the moment ammonia starts to rise.
Most aquarists are too impatient to wait for this little device to adjust to their tank. Mine was a grey color for about a week and then all of the sudden the colors emerged quite visibly. Since then, the ALERT has warned me of two seperate Ammonia spikes in smaller community tanks where fish had died in hard to see places. You couldn't ask for more ease of use. Now I hope they come out with a NITRITE ALERT!
This sensor works very well... had it in my tank for over 3 months and for the past month it has read SAFE so I hope it is still working. All of my fish are doing well and I even have had two batches of fry since I installed it so it must be working. Good product
I cyceled two different tanks 55 & 10 it showed what was goin on, checked results with other tests. Negative sometimes coloer is kind of hard to tell. But if its yellow you are ok if any other color check water. helps but does not replace other tests.
This is the worst product I have bought in a long long time. I should've spent this $5 on buying a bridge from a bum on the street..becasue that would've been a better use.
Stuck this thing in the tank...didn't change color one time!! And then I test the water and my ammonia is showing .5! Luckily I checked with a different kit.or else everything would've died sooner or later.
my brother and i have been using these guys for over a year and have always found them to be dead on, even when we added some new fish and the old test bottles weren't registering anything. we now have them on most of our tanks. for now i am a believer.
I put this piece of garbage in my new cycling tank. Never changed at all. Ammonia spiked to above 6. It reads SAFE. Thank God I did a back up test that caught it. Please DO NOT Buy this thing.
The paint or ink on the plastic which displays the colors you match up to the dot to check ammonia comes off after awhile when it's in your tank.
This concerns me because it's going into my aquarium water.
The dot sensor is extremely hard to replace due to the fact that you can't touch it with your hands, and you have to get the backing off, and put it on the unit all with a pair of tweaswers.
It's not really that necesasary. I would rather just test my ammonia once every couple of weeks.
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