Test kit curious

[PuffieBumble]

I brought an Ammonia Alert Device it's in the safe area right now. I was wondering do they really give an actual reading?

^ pic of the device

 

[Loveless]

I believe those work better than the lesser expensive kits that involve mixture of water and added chemical. I have problem doing color matching with those.

 

[Cheese Specialist]

I believe those work better than the lesser expensive kits that involve mixture of water and added chemical. I have problem doing color matching with those.

Me too!

It's so hard to tell between yellow and tinge-of-green. It wou;d be easy to see if there was a lot of amonia but it's really difficult at lesser levels though. It's the same with oxygen. When they do the colour on the back of packets they seem to forget that there'll be light reflecting and water does not colour the same block way as paper.

Nitrite is pretty easy though.

I have never tried that amonia device, is it easy to find? How does it work?

 

[Loveless]

the armonia one is okat.... you should try the nitrate one that had red... pink. redish purple, purple, now that's a killer


and it's not so much a device. it's a dipping paper or has a desginated spot for dropping water preformulated to react to armornia. At petsmart something likw thay would cost about 15$ from what I remember.

 

[Tenko]

I don't like the chemical test kits either, they've possibly caused the death of 1 of my fish already. I find that the colours are hard to distinguish at the best of times. For instance, the light in one room makes the ph test appear to be 0.2 higher than another room. The readings of them all look different if I check them next to the tank (due to the tube lights), next to the window (natural light), at different times of the day (due to the mix of room/natual light). Because of this I thought my Nitrite was 0.2 so I perfored a 10% water change. A few hours later a guppy had died, the lfs tested the water and said it was 0.3. (Did they say this just to invalidate their guarantee of replacement, or was it my difficulty of reading tests.)

I'm considering buying an expensive electronic ph tester but not sure about the other tests. I've heard you can get electronic nitrite and nitrate testers but have never seen any. Has anyone used one?

 

[Alien_spawn]

when i'm looking at the colours of test kits I always try to use natural light (near a window) as the results do look different in bulb light as i call it!

 

[Loveless]

another thing is the time has to be accurate, if you leave it mixed for 2 min, vs 5 min, vs 10 min, and vs 30 min... they all look different

The instruction say to leave it for 5 min but shaking harder or shaking not enough has a play in the color change as well

 

[Tenko]

I hate using them. The test tubes leak when you shake them too, I have to go and thoroughly rinse my hands afterwards to make sure I don't contaminate the tank water.

I'm not too concerned about the ph and temperature but when taking the more critical readings of nitrite, ammonia and nitrate I'd like a more accurate and easier way of doing it. From what I've seen the electronic methods are fairly expensive. I've put another post about it under hardware.

 

[EddieW]

I use the Seachem Ammonia Alerts in all of my tank - FW and SW. I think they are very useful in that at a glance I can tell whether there is even the faintest traces of ammonia.

You do still need to use test kits to check all the parameters, but these are very useful warning devices.

Cheers, Eddie