Aquavitro Alpha

What is it?
A high quality water conditioner made by Seachem under their aquavitro brand for use in reef or freshwater aquariums.

What does it do?
By adding it to your aquarium water you can instantly remove chlorine, chloramine and renders any released ammonia non-toxic for 24 hours. It also detoxifies nitrite and nitrate so that they too have no ill effect on the aquatic animals in your tank.

It also detoxifies any toxic heavy metals that may be present in your tap water.

Seachem claims - "It converts ammonia into a safe, non-toxic form that is readily utilized by beneficial bacteria and reef inhabitants such as clams. alpha™ may be used during tank cycling to alleviate ammonia/nitrite toxicity. alpha™ detoxifies nitrite and nitrate, allowing the biofilter to more efficiently remove them. alpha™ also promotes the production and regeneration of the natural slime coat on fish. alpha™ is non-acidic and will not impact pH, nor will it over activate skimmers."

Available in different sizes bottles, 5ml of this liquid per can remove 0.8 mg/L ammonia,  1.2 mg/L chloramine, or 3.3 mg/L chlorine. Or putting it another way, 1ml can detoxify a tank of the above levels.


 * Seachem claims it is the highest concentrated water conditioner on the market.


 * Seachem claim it doesn't significantly reduce oxygen in the water unless, seriously overdosed or there is no nitrogen compounds to remove.


 * Seachem claim that by using five times the normal dosage it will remove Nitrate.

Use
Aquarists can use this daily in conjunction with a bacteria starter product like Stability, BIO-Spira or Safestart to instantly make up a new aquarium safely within 24 hours and cause no harm to the animals with a typical cycling time of 5 days or less.

Special notes
alpha like all other water conditioners will cause most test kits to read a false high nitrogen level. For example if testing for ammonia, Salicylate or Nessler based kits determine the total ammonia by raising the pH of the test solution to 12 or greater. At this high pH all ammonia removal products will breakdown and re-release the ammonia, thus giving you a false ammonia reading. Same goes for nitrite or nitrate.


 * Seachem's Multitest Ammonia kit use a different method and therefore that kit reading is not affected by any water conditioner chemical. But their Nitrate/Nitrite multitest kit will be.
 * Tip: Leave a sample of the water out in a cup for 24 hours and test it then. Any Prime in the sample will have gone by then.

Availability
This product is usually found in the better range of aquarium and pet shops in USA and Europe. It is available online.

Special note
Though this product is promoted for use in reef aquariums, it is suitable for use in freshwater aquariums as well. It is an enhanced and more concentrated version of Prime.

Links

 * Alpha by aquavitro
 * MSDS data
 * See also Water conditioners and Prime

Stockists

 * UK - AQUAessentials