Amino acids to ammonia

[LordJoshaeus]

I understand that ammonia is derived from the decay of proteins. In that case, roughly how much ammonia (in mols) is created when the amino acids comprising the proteins decay? Thanks :)
EDIT! I found the equation after posting this!!! Ammonia (in grams) = proteins (in grams) * .16 * (9/7). I was having trouble finding it when I first posted...

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What do you want to do with this formula?

 

[LordJoshaeus]

What do you want to do with this formula?

Good question! I am going to be experimenting with growing out brine shrimp and wanted to know how much ammonia their food was adding each day. For example, if I fed spirulina (which can be up to 70% protein by dry weight) and fed 1/16th tsp of spirulina (density up to .6 grams per ml) in a day to a liter culture (probably far too much honestly...a quarter of this might be better), I could add up to about 5.4 ppm ammonia assuming there is no water weight in the spirulina powder (I'm not sure that is the case, honestly, and surely some of that protein will be incorporated into the brine shrimp before decaying...but it's always good to assume a worst case scenario). Eventually once I have the money I will be transitioning to something more nutrient rich, perhaps phytofeast or sdaquarist, but since I am trying to feed freshwater fish with the brine shrimp that is not as big of a problem.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

OK, I'm not sure that I think this is useful information, since I doubt you can predict water ammonia levels from food composition, but I understand what you are trying to do. :)

 

[Dan_P]

Good question! I am going to be experimenting with growing out brine shrimp and wanted to know how much ammonia their food was adding each day. For example, if I fed spirulina (which can be up to 70% protein by dry weight) and fed 1/16th tsp of spirulina (density up to .6 grams per ml) in a day to a liter culture (probably far too much honestly...a quarter of this might be better), I could add up to about 5.4 ppm ammonia assuming there is no water weight in the spirulina powder (I'm not sure that is the case, honestly, and surely some of that protein will be incorporated into the brine shrimp before decaying...but it's always good to assume a worst case scenario). Eventually once I have the money I will be transitioning to something more nutrient rich, perhaps phytofeast or sdaquarist, but since I am trying to feed freshwater fish with the brine shrimp that is not as big of a problem.

Yeah, you are bounding the problem by defining 100% conversion of food to ammonia.

I was thinking it won’t be that high because the formation of bacterial biomass consumes ammonia. Then I was thinking can carbon dosing be used to minimize ammonia and then I wondered whether the bacteria floc would serve as brine shrimp food.

Anyway, good luck.