Anyone Have Experience With These?

[Lt.]

Just curious, I think it'd be so convenient.

 

[jakeras]

I've had them before. The ammonia was semi accurate, and the ph iffy. I would just get the api master test kit IMO.

 

[Oohitsae]

I have the ammonia one in all my tanks and it's pretty accurate. Much more convenient to have than doing tests all the time. It's kind of useless after cycling unless you disturb your substrate in which case it comes in handy if an ammonia spike happens because of it.
PH really isn't necessary IMO unless you are running CO2 or your tap water changes constantly which mine doesnt

 

[Dallascowboys16]

Yeah almost 99% of the time those are inaccurate so I wouldn't recommend them.

 

[brennae]

I had something like them for my salt tank and never got an accurate reading from them.

 

[Oohitsae]

Really?

I always have accurate readings, or accurate enough for me to know I need a water change. As soon as I notice the color change from yellow i do a large change and they go back. Actually as soon as they hit air they all change back to .00

I can't say they they are 100% accurate, enough to tell you what your exact level is because I normally don't test for anything besides nitrate anymore unless setting up a new but like mentioned, definitely does a good enough job to let me know if/when water should be changed.

 

[brennae]

I've never tried them on freshwater. I actually have a few unopened ones sitting around. Perhaps I'll experiment.

 

[brennae]

I just put one in my tank, nothing yet. BUT in my infinite wisdom I opened the package before reading the part that says don't touch the sensor and I touched the sensor. I'll update tomorrow as to if its working or not. Maybe I'll even take a picture.

 

[Cactuspixie]

As much as I love seachem products, I thought those were unreliable rubbish. I threw mine out after I tested them with different water parameters and they didn't change.

 

[Oohitsae]

I just put one in my tank, nothing yet. BUT in my infinite wisdom I opened the package before reading the part that says don't touch the sensor and I touched the sensor. I'll update tomorrow as to if its working or not. Maybe I'll even take a picture.

I accidentally touch the sensors when moving them a lot, it really doesn't effect anything from my experience

 

[Lt.]

See, my thinking was, if I can tell when it gets above ROUGHLY 30ppm, or 40ppm, then I'll do a change. I see no need to have to use a master kit if j don't have too. There's a serious convenience thing here.

 

[brennae]

Well the one I just tested says I need to change some water. Its at "alert" or something. I will do my water change and then see what it says. Yes it would be convenient. I had forgotten these little things even existed until this thread.

 

[Lt.]

Try testing the water with the API master kit first, just to see what it considers "Alert" worthy.

 

[Cactuspixie]

See, my thinking was, if I can tell when it gets above ROUGHLY 30ppm, or 40ppm, then I'll do a change. I see no need to have to use a master kit if j don't have too. There's a serious convenience thing here.

But if you shouldn't ever have an ammonia reading in a healthy established tank. It's the nitrate levels that indicate how much and how frequent water changes need to be done.

By using the master test regularly to begin with, you will get to know the 'rhythm' of your tank. Once you have that information, you can set a pwc schedule and just test periodically to be sure its all good.

 

[Lt.]

I guess I went off half cocked on this, oh well, back to the same old same old.

 

[brennae]

I couldn't get mine to work. I took a reading via master test kit and the seachem thing was off and then I did a big water change and its still off. I wouldn't spend the money.