What Happens When API Ammonia Test Kit Goes Bad

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Randy, I asked above, but I just want to confirm that, ostensibly, you put a lot of trust in these Seachem ammonia alert badges? I'm asking because I know guys like Jay H. and Vetteguy have said that they don't trust these badges, I believe they have said they are really for freshwater use (if useful at all)?

I'd appreciate your thoughts on these badges; thank you for your help!

I don’t have any reason to doubt them, but I don’t know for sure that they are always accurate.

DanP has done a number of tests with it:

@Dan_P

Does Prime actually "Detoxify" free ammonia, NH3?

This started when @Dan_P was looking at measuring NH3 with seneye and was curious about performance near zero NH3. I suggested trying Prime to artificially zero out the NH3 sensor, and the results were weird... so I checked with my seachem kit. Prime by Seachem is commonly used to treat tap...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[Fish Fan]

I don’t have any reason to doubt them, but I don’t know for sure that they are always accurate.

DanP has done a number of tests with it:

@Dan_P

Does Prime actually "Detoxify" free ammonia, NH3?

This started when @Dan_P was looking at measuring NH3 with seneye and was curious about performance near zero NH3. I suggested trying Prime to artificially zero out the NH3 sensor, and the results were weird... so I checked with my seachem kit. Prime by Seachem is commonly used to treat tap...

www.reef2reef.com

Thank you, I'll take a look at that link!

 

[Dan_P]

I don’t have any reason to doubt them, but I don’t know for sure that they are always accurate.

DanP has done a number of tests with it:

@Dan_P

Does Prime actually "Detoxify" free ammonia, NH3?

This started when @Dan_P was looking at measuring NH3 with seneye and was curious about performance near zero NH3. I suggested trying Prime to artificially zero out the NH3 sensor, and the results were weird... so I checked with my seachem kit. Prime by Seachem is commonly used to treat tap...

www.reef2reef.com

I used a fiber optic cable attached to a spectrophotometer to record the intensity and spectrum of the light reflected from several ammonia detecting films, including Seachem and Seneye. I used ammonium chloride to calibrate the films. They work.

The faster the response time to the appearance of ammonia, the longer is the recovery time, the time to return to their resting state once ammonia is removed. The color change to ammonia is not linear over a large range, the change becoming weaker at higher concentrations. The films provide a good estimate of the free ammonia concentration when doing visual color comparisons, very good when using a photometer to measure the color change.

 

[Fish Fan]

I used a fiber optic cable attached to a spectrophotometer to record the intensity and spectrum of the light reflected from several ammonia detecting films, including Seachem and Seneye. I used ammonium chloride to calibrate the films. They work.

The faster the response time to the appearance of ammonia, the longer is the recovery time, the time to return to their resting state once ammonia is removed. The color change to ammonia is not linear over a large range, the change becoming weaker at higher concentrations. The films provide a good estimate of the free ammonia concentration when doing visual color comparisons, very good when using a photometer to measure the color change.

Good information, thanks for your help!