Does anyone dose ammonia and/or how would one try?

[YankeeTankee]

I found a bottle of ammonium hydroxide from the supermarket but it doesn't tell the strength. From a little research I'm finding that most household solutions are 3%. (I'm hoping this is a safe guess!). I'd like to ask for someone to confirm my math:

3% = 30mg/ml. Tank vol = 150 L I want to dose 0.2 mg/L per day.

So, 150L x 0.2 = 30 mg. So, I need to dose 1 ml (divided) per day.

If this is correct, then I will dilute it so I can dose 1 ml every hour (for 24hrs/day):
1 ml div. by 24 = 0.0416 ml/dose. If I dilute it 1:23, then I could dose 1 ml 24 times a day to get 0.02 mg/L. (1 div by 0.0416 = 24; therefore, 1:23 dilution).

Is all this correct? Thank you!

Yes, 3%W/V is 30mg/mL and conveniently to dose 0.2mg/L at 150L is 1mL per day. You'd then dilute with 23mLs for every 1mL so a one week container would contain 7mL of strait stuff and 161mL of RODI totaling 168mL and again that's 7 days worth. That's the math I came up with anyway.

 

[Dr. Jim]

This is beyond unhelpful Jim, but I add 1-2 mls of straight ammonium into a 24g fuge when I have small clams. There is chaeto in there, some rogue Z&P, peppermint shrimp and some small fish that I am growing larger. I use the 10% janitorial strength stuff that I got at ACE Hardware. This 24g fuge is attached to a 80g sump, 240g display and 60g frag tank... so lots of water volume. It has about a 300 gph heading into the fuge, so good turnover. I try and add it every day, but it gets hard. If I miss a day, I go with 2mls. Anecdotally, nothing seems to mind. I also feed the heck out of those fish and shrimp and leave plenty of flakes and pellets laying around for them to eat later... so imagine that there is some natural ammona[a,um] too.

You can dose it through the ATO, but you need a tight lid or it will gas.

So you are dosing about 1.5 ml for 400 gal. So, this makes the math easy!

For my 40 gal tank, that would be 0.15 ml, but because you have 10% vs my 3%, we multiply by 3.3 to get 0.5 ml per day.....which compares to my calculated 1.0 per day...so we are pretty close. Except you are braver than me by dosing it all at once!
So, your info WAS helpful! Thanks!

I guess the big question: How do we know if we are dosing enough? For me, I want to see my frags start to look better and see my chaeto survive, but what can we measure as some kind of a guide? Nitrates? Or, better.... did I read someone mention an accurate Seneye ammonia reader? (I will have to look into that).

One "worry" I just had..... can I trust putting this system on a doser? I don't know if it is just me, but I'm certainly not finding Controllers to be foolproof. What if the doser screws up and starts pumping in loads of ammonia?! Time to take up chess, I guess.

 

[jda]

Except I dose it into a 24g tank, so it takes a while to get diluted into all of that 400g. That is kinda my goal since the things that I want to use it are in that tank. At a pH of about 8.3, the ammonia level appears to be plenty low and not harmful to the fish or shrimp.

I am nearly positive that the chaeto, and most macros, can absorb ammonia directly, so I am feeding them too... as long as they also uptake P, then I am happy. My sandbed can handle the nitrate.

My guess is that not much of that ammonium is leaving that little tank.

 

[Jon_W79]

So you are dosing about 1.5 ml for 400 gal. So, this makes the math easy!

For my 40 gal tank, that would be 0.15 ml, but because you have 10% vs my 3%, we multiply by 3.3 to get 0.5 ml per day.....which compares to my calculated 1.0 per day...so we are pretty close. Except you are braver than me by dosing it all at once!
So, your info WAS helpful! Thanks!

I guess the big question: How do we know if we are dosing enough? For me, I want to see my frags start to look better and see my chaeto survive, but what can we measure as some kind of a guide? Nitrates? Or, better.... did I read someone mention an accurate Seneye ammonia reader? (I will have to look into that).

One "worry" I just had..... can I trust putting this system on a doser? I don't know if it is just me, but I'm certainly not finding Controllers to be foolproof. What if the doser screws up and starts pumping in loads of ammonia?! Time to take up chess, I guess.

This helped me put ammonium dosing in perspective. One gram of ammonia yields 4.42 grams of nitrate.

 

[flampton]

I found a bottle of ammonium hydroxide from the supermarket but it doesn't tell the strength. From a little research I'm finding that most household solutions are 3%. (I'm hoping this is a safe guess!). I'd like to ask for someone to confirm my math:

3% = 30mg/ml. Tank vol = 150 L I want to dose 0.2 mg/L per day.

So, 150L x 0.2 = 30 mg. So, I need to dose 1 ml (divided) per day.

If this is correct, then I will dilute it so I can dose 1 ml every hour (for 24hrs/day):
1 ml div. by 24 = 0.0416 ml/dose. If I dilute it 1:23, then I could dose 1 ml 24 times a day to get 0.02 mg/L. (1 div by 0.0416 = 24; therefore, 1:23 dilution).

Is all this correct? Thank you!

It's not exactly correct but I really wouldn't worry about it. As NH3 is a gas they make these solutions volume/volume. Thus you need the density which for a 3% solution is ~0.985

So your numbers are only ~1.5% off.


Edit: wrong see my post below

 

[Dr. Jim]

My guess is that not much of that ammonium is leaving that little tank.

So you think that the bacteria in my tank, along with the HOB refugium with some macro, and my scrawny frags aren't enough to quickly remove the ammonium? That would suggest I should possibly lower the dosage. Is that what you are suggesting?

 

[Dr. Jim]

It's not exactly correct but I really wouldn't worry about it. As NH3 is a gas they make these solutions volume/volume. Thus you need the density which for a 3% solution is ~0.985

So your numbers are only ~1.5% off.

Thank you for this info. But just so I know, am I dosing 1.5% too high or too low?
Thanks again!

 

[jda]

I am not suggesting anything, only that I expect my dose mostly stays in the tank since he clams are effective water filterers and that the chaeto is voluminous. I have no idea what is right or wrong. I do know that little frags suffer from a simple math problem of being small and not having much surface area... beyond that, I am not smart enough to figure stuff out. A huge colony or ball of chaeto probably has less of a math problem.

 

[flampton]

Thank you for this info. But just so I know, am I dosing 1.5% too high or too low?
Thanks again!

It would be 1.5% lower, but again won't matter because you won't be able to measure to that accuracy anyways


Edit:wrong see below

 

[flampton]

Thank you for this info. But just so I know, am I dosing 1.5% too high or too low?
Thanks again!

Something was nagging me that I got it wrong. And I was correct I got it way wrong.

Ammonia density is 0.73 g/ml and it makes up 3% of the solution. That means that for 1 L the NH3 would weigh 21.9 grams. Or a 2.19% W/V solution. : Facepalm

So yes that means that for your calculations you'll need to use this new number.

Sorry for confusing everybody!!!

 

[MentalNote]

Interesting thread. Thanks all. I’ve been pondering experimenting with this for a few months...

 

[CoralClasher]

Any updates? How much ammonia are you adding and how often?

 

[brandon429]

Team

i had to click seventeen pages to find you

EMERGENCY - Crazy Ammonia spike

Hey all, This tank has been up for 1+ year and its been doing great with SPS, LPS etc. Today I had 1 sps peel out and I thought maybe it was the new carbon I changed out, went to rent out a par meter to make sure had them test the water just for ***** and giggles as I test it myself x2 weekly...

www.reef2reef.com

that huge reef tank with fish and corals claims to be stalled on ammonia processing


is it?

 

[brandon429]

you have all dosed collectively twenty six ounces of straight killer fluid in your reef, for fun and for legit nitrogen racehorsing in a world of total ammonia fear




but an outlier Red Sea nh3 test has us hog tied?


can someone let me know the mechanism at play to allow for no ammonia uptake above

how’s that reef different from you all’s reefs

 

[t5Nitro]

I have noticed that my nitrates have increased without the need to dose any nitrates directly. I dont know if its possible for the corals to consume all the ammonia in the water though. Yes perhaps its simply the lack of adding nitrates that the alk consumption has "increased" it has made it easier for me to dose alk and calcium equally though since i had to constantly adjust the doser when adding nitrates and phosphates.

Any updates on your sps health and tank nutrients? I have a bottle of Dr Tim's ammonium chloride that I used to start cycling the tank that I thought about dosing to my now >1yr old reef tank. Its about 280 to 300L volume. I was just going to add 1 drop daily.

 

[brandon429]

EMERGENCY - Crazy Ammonia spike

Have you done an actual ammonia test on your ro/di water? Maybe a chloramine contamination... that’ll give positive ammonia readings. My city uses chloramines so I run sediment filter followed by x2 chloramine blocks, membrane through x3 di resin. Tds 0 and I have tested using strips for...

www.reef2reef.com

will an ammonia doser from this thread please read that thread, and list why Betex’s tank could not begin ammonia dosing right now

your thread here about dosing ammonia on purpose is about to be linked a thousand times in false ammonia reading posts so that misreading test owners can see how rapidly ammonia is uptaken in post cycle reefs.


is there a remote chance their ammonia test kit is wrong


T5nitro adding one drop daily is fine it’s harmless

 

[brandon429]

How did this thread run seven pages and nobody’s reef tank crashed from adding ammonia?



is there an inherent ability to uptake ammonia in all reefs post cycle, and you’ve all been making fine use of that here so far?

 

[CoralClasher]

I have been dosing .5ml Dr. Tim’s ammonium chloride every morning for the last few weeks. I see the dose on my Seneye and it’s gone in minutes. 130 gallons of water and 17 well fed fish.

 

[brandon429]

Thank you Jon for the feedback.

 

[CoralClasher]

Thank you Jon for the feedback.

I’m on my monthly three day blackout and just did the ammonium dose still gone in minutes.