Fishless cycling with amonia alert...

[D-Bak]

I was thinking that it might be a nice way to save money instead of testing my water every other day for ammonia and wasting my precious test strips (man those things are expensive)..... Possibly I could stick an ammonia alert in the tank and use that?

I was thinking that I could add ammonia into the tank until the alert says it is unsafe, and then wait for it to go back down to moderate or whatever the middle category is, and then add again to bring it back to unsafe?

It seems like a pretty good idea, and like i said, it will save me plenty of test strips, and will be able to see the amonia level every time i look at my tank...


Any thoughts on if this is actually a good idea???


Thank you

Zak

 

[Ms.Bubbles]

IMO the only really accurate way to see if there's ammonia in the tank is to test for it using the liquid test kits. I've heard several horror stories of ammonia alert showing 0 when ammonia was actually at lethal levels in the tank.

You would be taking chances using these instead of a good test kit. Even the ammonia dip-stick tests are notoriously inaccurate.

I use the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Master Test Kit. It's more accurate than the Nutrafin kit, and is the one I would recommend.

 

[LunchBox]

yeah I haven't heard anything good about the test strips. most folks will tell you the way to go is with one of the liquid test kits. I beleive the AP ammonia test kit is only like 5 bucks and will do maybe 100 tests or so (not sure on the number. I'm still using the one I got in february)