KZ Sponge Power - High in Ammonia?

[Peng]

Just received a new KZ Sponge Power. I'm curious how's everyone's experience with this product. I use a lot of KZ products and some of them have quick effect. But they don't say anything about their ingredients.

When I first opened the bottle, I smelled it and its smell was definitely very strong. I could see why some were saying that it smelled like vinegar. It smelled like some bitter nitrogen-containing reagents from an ochem lab. So I tested it with ammonia, nitrate, and nitrite test kits. I used aquarium water as controls and added 1-2 drops of this product into each water sample before adding the reagents.

Result: very high ammonia detected, nitrate, nitrite not detected.

Ammonia is so high that the tube turned green-ish blue. I wonder why there is so much ammonia in there and how that could help sponges and filter feeders because people have reported positively on sponge growth after using this product. Maybe Dr. @Randy Holmes-Farley could offer some insight?

For ammonia testing I used API and their ingredients are Berthelot's regents. I'm not familiar with that reaction and don't know if the regents could do a false positive for ammonia.

Please share your experience on using this product

 

[Anirban]

Yup, you are right. I don't use it anymore but have some in stock. I added 10 drops with RO/DI water and did the test. After 5 minutes this is what I got.

 

[Peng]

"Nitrogen metabolism and cycling have been extensively studied in microbial communities of sponges. Ammonia oxidation is perhaps the best-studied symbiotic function in sponge holobionts, with a wide diversity of both ammonia-oxidizing archaea and bacteria being known to inhabit a large diversity of sponges (24, 71,–75) and with at least some of these being vertically transmitted (76). Gene-centric (i.e., amoA PCR), genomic, metagenomic, metatranscriptomic, metaproteomic, and other experimental studies have revealed the importance of symbiont-driven ammonia oxidation in the sponge holobiont."

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4850255/

This article seems to point out that some of the the symbiotic microbiome residing in sponges oxidize ammonia for various reasons.

 

[Anirban]

I know people think there is silica in sponge power as that is necessary for sponge but ammonia will be a bit too much. So, actually people are adding ammonia and also dosing bacteria to get rid of it.....lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It may just be interference from other amines, such as the amino acid lysine.

Amines are known to have a positive result in salicylate ammonia test kits (which you are using).

https://www.hach.com/asset-get.download-en.jsa?code=55840
"Primary amines are found and cause high-bias results."

It may also be a breakdown product in the additive, and at the dilution used in a reef aquarium, 20 ppm ammonia in the additive adds very little ammonia to the tank. Even 20 ppm in the additive might translate to only 0.00004 ppm.

 

[Peng]

It may just be interference from other amines, such as the amino acid lysine.

Amines are known to have a positive result in salicylate ammonia test kits (which you are using).

https://www.hach.com/asset-get.download-en.jsa?code=55840
"Primary amines are found and cause high-bias results."

It may also be a breakdown product in the additive, and at the dilution used in a reef aquarium, 20 ppm ammonia in the additive adds very little ammonia to the tank. Even 20 ppm in the additive might translate to only 0.00004 ppm.

Thank you!

 

[bo0sted2g]

You added 10 drops to 5ml of water, where as the directions state it's supposed to be used at 2 drops per 50 gallons every other day. I'm not saying that sponge power doesn't contain ammonia I'm just saying that, that test is way over dosed and I have been dosing sponge power and test my parameters weekly including ammonia and have never seen a detectable amount of N03 using the same test kit you guys have here.