There are a number of these out there, from ammonia-only like this dealie or the all-in-ones of similar design. Seachem makes them which seems like a good sign, their products are usually high quality, but I am looking for comments from personal experience.
what prompts this post is that Greech recommended one to a poster who had an unexpected fish in a possibly not fully cycled tank. I had wondered about them all the way back in my all-freshwater days but had never thought about them for a SW tank.
Let's face it, for those of us who are not chemistry geeks water testing is just a pain in the butt, messy and time consuming, and nervewracking for those whose color vision (or vision in general, alas) is not the greatest, to try to match test tube to those little charts. If the stick-on indicators work it would be a great relief to just look whether the indicator is in All Is Well, or Time For Water Change, to Hey Dummy Time For Water Change Was Like A Week Ago, and of course the dreaded They're Dead Jim.
Personally I would still do the API test tube thing every few months no matter what, if only to see if the stick-on was wearing out. But if there was a way to cut back on the need to drag out the test tubes from once a week to once a month or more without endangering one's fish this would be a Good Thing.
what prompts this post is that Greech recommended one to a poster who had an unexpected fish in a possibly not fully cycled tank. I had wondered about them all the way back in my all-freshwater days but had never thought about them for a SW tank.
Let's face it, for those of us who are not chemistry geeks water testing is just a pain in the butt, messy and time consuming, and nervewracking for those whose color vision (or vision in general, alas) is not the greatest, to try to match test tube to those little charts. If the stick-on indicators work it would be a great relief to just look whether the indicator is in All Is Well, or Time For Water Change, to Hey Dummy Time For Water Change Was Like A Week Ago, and of course the dreaded They're Dead Jim.
Personally I would still do the API test tube thing every few months no matter what, if only to see if the stick-on was wearing out. But if there was a way to cut back on the need to drag out the test tubes from once a week to once a month or more without endangering one's fish this would be a Good Thing.
