Salicylaldehyde acyl-hydrazone derivatives have been widely applied to design fluorescent probe for Al3+ detection, but they are always restricted to detect Al3+ in water and actual samples by their poor solubility, low sensitivity, and long response time. Biologically inspired, four salicylaldehyde acyl-hydrazone compounds were designed and synthesized and H4L1 as one of them was selected for in-situ assembly of the ytterbium complex (FP-Al), which has been developed to be a new fluorescent probe for Al3+ detection by the central mental displacement process. The in-situ structure transformation from FP-Al to Al-L was fully characterized by X-ray crystal structure analysis, 1H NMR, FT-IR, and spectral analysis. The intrinsic driving force was explained and elaborated by theoretical calculation. FP-Al showed a significant visible fluorescence enhancement and near-infrared luminescence decreased upon the addition of Al3+. Compared with the ligand H4L1, FP-Al showed enhanced sensing performance during Al3+ detection, especially in improving water solubility and selectivity to Al3+, promoting response speed, reducing background fluorescence and increase cell-membrane permeability. The application of spontaneous metal replacement reaction might be able to provide a new strategy to develop high-performance optical chemo-sensors.