Seachem Ammonia Alert

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bartman

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Jun 10, 2004
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Does anyone have any experience with these? The Seachem website says they last about a year... Since our city has put chloramine into the water, it would be nice to know if the water is safe.

I am using this in a FW tank.
 
I have not used them personally, but several people who post here have. I've never read anything bad about them, and most seem pretty satisfied. They are very handy for monitoring ammonia if you use Prime (a dechoraminator) because Prime plays hob with normal ammonia tests.

Jim
 
LOL @ Jim - Only if you consider Nessler's reagent tests "normal". Prime is fine with salicylate tests. No Nessler's test is compatable with any agent which breaks the chlorine-ammonia bonds of chloramine and neutralizes both the released chlorine and the released ammonia. All of which means that within the next few years, Nessler's reagent kits should be fully extinct in the USA, and IMHO they already should be, along with the many thiosulfate-only conditioners which break the chloramine bond amd neutralize the chlorine, leaving the ammonia untouched - which is pointedly ignored on the package information.
 
Sorry... to 'play hob' means to 'make mischief with' with something, or in this case, to provide misleading results. Very different than 'HOB' (Hang on Back)!

RTR, I thought I read somewhere that Prime confounded salicylate tests, too, and that the ammonia alert badges were the only accurate measure. Not true?

Jim
 
Salicylate works fine for me when I need to do fishless and have positive ammonia readings, but I cannot swear that I always have full-strength Prime present, as much/most of my water is aged. But when I do something fishless, I do tend to act as if it were a novice tank, so use fresh tap, conditioner, etc. to avoid misleading advice from non-standard practices (as most of mine are). Ditto for Amquel, which I formerly used until there were so many issues with pH/KH from folks with soft water (mine is not).
 
RTR said:
... along with the many thiosulfate-only conditioners which break the chloramine bond amd neutralize the chlorine, leaving the ammonia untouched - which is pointedly ignored on the package information.
Click to expand...
If I use Sodium Thiosulphate to de-chlorminate the water, will the bacteria present in my tank be able to handle the leftover ammonia, or is it too much ammonia load all at once?

Is it best to treat water with Sodium Thiosulphate, then age before introducing into the tank?
 
The bacteria in the tank will take care of the ammonia... eventually. I think the question is whether you want to expose your fish to any level of ammonia on a repeated basis.

At home, I age my water in tubs. I use bulk thiosulfate to treat our chloriminated water, and the tubs have developed modest biofilters that scavenge the ammonia freed by the dechlorinator, usually within 24 hours or less. For my tanks at work (where I can't age water), I use Amquel.

Jim
 
Thanks Jim. One last question. Does sodium thiosulphate neutralize plain old chlorine as well? I just recieved word that that is what our town treats our water with.
 
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