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Ammonia level

M

maverick786us

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Joined
6 Nov 2024
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172
Location
Columbus, GA
This is the level of ammonia in my 1 month old planted tank. Is my test kit faulty or is it common to have such a low ammonia level in a heavily planted cycled tank?

1734158041021.jpeg
 
we all want zero of ammonia. I thought little bit of ammonia is needed as a food source for nitrifying bacterias otherwise they go into dormant state and bring nitrogen cycle to a halt.
 
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Hi all,
maverick786us said:
I thought littlebit of Antonia is needed as a food source for nitrifying bacteria
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It is, but the plants (and microbes in the filter, substrate, in the rhizosphere etc) should be mopping any TAN ammonia up before it ever becomes measurable - <"Correspondence with Dr Ryan Newton - School of Freshwater Sciences, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee">.
maverick786us said:
otherwise they go into dormant state
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Just ignore what any-one else tells you, or you read elsewhere, unless it is a scientific paper. At UKAPS <"we've actually talked with scientists working in this field">.
maverick786us said:
and bring nitrogen cycle to a halt.
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Just "no, it won't". I'm not trying to be funny but if you read the links in your threads (and in my signature) it will save you a lot of heartache and you can get on with enjoying your tank.

cheers Darrel
 
dw1305 said:
Hi all,

It is, but the plants (and microbes in the filter, substrate, in the rhizosphere etc) should be mopping any TAN ammonia up before it ever becomes measurable - <"Correspondence with Dr Ryan Newton - School of Freshwater Sciences, University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee">.

Just ignore what any-one else tells you, or you read elsewhere, unless it is a scientific paper. At UKAPS <"we've actually talked with scientists working in this field">.

Just "no, it won't". I'm not trying to be funny but if you read the links in your threads (and in my signature) it will save you a lot of heartache and you can get on with enjoying your tank.

cheers Darrel
Click to expand...
Thank you
 
maverick786us said:
This is the level of ammonia in my 1 month old planted tank. Is my test kit faulty or is it common to have such a low ammonia level in a heavily planted cycled tank?
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Looks fine to me. This is definitely a realistic reading for a heavily planted maturing tank.

Keep in mind this is TAN - Total ammonia which includes both NH3 and NH4. It's the free ammonia (NH3) that is highly toxic for your livestock. NH3 gets toxic at around 0.01-0.02 ppm. how toxic depends of length of exposure and livestock.

As other have said you want to keep the TAN level low. however, even if your TAN would be higher than you read with your kit, it is not necessarily an indication of any danger:

To derive the NH3 level (the toxic free ammonia) in your tank you need the temperature and especially pH. Say for a TAN level of 0.5 ppm at pH of 7 at 24 C the NH3 concentration is 0.002634 ppm Perfectly safe. On the other hand, at a pH of 8 at 24 C the NH3 would be 0.0251 ppm which would be toxic.

A shorthand, which is not taking temperature into account as it plays a minuscule role compared to pH in the temperature range we are working in:

NH3 = TAN / (1 + 10^(9.25 - pH) )

So for a TAN at 0.5 ppm and a pH of 7 you get: 0.5 / (1 + 10^(9.25 - 7) ) = 0.5 / (1 + 177.82) = 0.00279 ppm. of NH3.

Or you can just use an online calculator 🙂


EDIT: As you can tell, a +1 increase in pH makes the concentration of NH3 10 times higher, so measuring TAN and calculating NH3 based on measured pH, should be done before any injection of CO2 begins as CO2 usually will cause a drop by 1 pH. which in turn means you can have a perfectly safe NH3 level during the day when you inject CO2 and a dangerously high NH3 level during the night or early morning where you don't.

Cheers,
Michael
 
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MichaelJ said:
Looks fine to me. This is definitely a realistic reading for a heavily planted maturing tank.

Keep in mind this is TAN - Total ammonia which includes both NH3 and NH4. It's the free ammonia (NH3) that is highly toxic for your livestock. NH3 gets toxic at around 0.01-0.02 ppm. how toxic depends of time of exposure and livestock.

As other have said you want to keep the TAN level low. however, even if your TAN would be higher than you read with your kit, it is not necessarily an indication of any danger:

To derive the NH3 level (the toxic free ammonia) in your tank you need the temperature and especially pH. Say for a TAN level of 0.5 ppm at pH of 7 at 24 C the NH3 concentration is 0.002634 ppm Perfectly safe. On the other hand, at pH of 8 at 24 C the NH3 would be 0.0251 ppm which would be toxic.

A shorthand, which is not taken temperature into account as it plays a minuscule role compared to pH, in the temperature range we are working in:

NH3 = TAN / (1 + 10^(9.25 - pH) )

So for a TAN at 0.5 ppm and a pH of 7 you get: 0.5 / (1 + 10^(9.25 - 7) ) = 0.5 / (1 + 177.82) = 0.00279 ppm. of NH3.

Or you can just use an online calculator 🙂



Cheers,
Michael
Click to expand...


Thank you Sir...

I love heavily planted jungle and river style aquascape with pressurized CO2. So the plants keep ammonia and nitrate in check and CO2 keeps PH low.IMG_6773.jpgIMG_6773.jpgIMG_6774.jpg
 
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