DIY Ammonia dosing for low nitrate systems

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

What’s a non-lethal total ammonia level for typical reef fish that aren’t salmon? 2ppm?

I would not want to expose fish to 5 ppm, but I’ve not seen data for any marine fish where the dose to kill half of them in a few days is less than 10 ppm.

 

[buruskeee]

What’s a non-lethal total ammonia level for typical reef fish that aren’t salmon? 2ppm?

I would not want to expose fish to 5 ppm, but I’ve not seen data for any marine fish where the dose to kill half of them in a few days is less than 10 ppm.

Got it. I can probably cut my potency down to 6g per 1L rather than 12g, which would still last me a little over 2 weeks. Worst case I’d only be able to dump 2.4ppm total into my system, which should break down pretty quickly.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Got it. I can probably cut my potency down to 6g per 1L rather than 12g, which would still last me a little over 2 weeks. Worst case I’d only be able to dump 2.4ppm total into my system, which should break down pretty quickly.

Sounds like a fine plan. :)

 

[rishma]

I think I am growing some cyano algae for the first time in my 5 year old tank. It’s interesting because I’ve seen others report having cyano when they started dosing urea, which has been included in my ammonia for the last several months.

Barely a correlation, and certainly not causation but pretty interesting!

I am going to stop dosing for the next week or two and see what happens. It’s about time to mix up a new solution so I may go back to only ammonium bicarbonate.

Nitrate is 3.7 ppm.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I think I am growing some cyano algae for the first time in my 5 year old tank. It’s interesting because I’ve seen others report having cyano when they started dosing urea, which has been included in my ammonia for the last several months.

Barely a correlation, and certainly not causation but pretty interesting!

I am going to stop dosing for the next week or two and see what happens. It’s about time to mix up a new solution so I may go back to only ammonium bicarbonate.

Nitrate is 3.7 ppm.

If it is a real effect, it’s certainly logical:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6536089/

 

[rishma]

I have a bottle of KZ amino acids I’ve had a long time and haven’t used it. I was thinking of adding them to my ammonium bicarbonate bottle when I mix up a new batch.

Any reason not to? I’ll do a quick compatibility test but I don’t expect a precipitate. More worried about growing funk.

 

[joseph.timbs]

Disregard comment. I have it worked out now.


Alright, out of neonitro and willing to give ammonia dosing a shot. I have the pure baking soda from Amazon suggested. 20g/L solution. Where I’m confused is what’s the suggested increase I a day? I can take it from there, just confused by ppm, mg, etc. terminology.

To add 0.1 mg/L ammonia to an aquarium, you would need to add 2.3 mL of either stock solution to a 100 L (26 gallon) aquarium. You may need to add this amount multiply times per day to dose enough.

This is where I am confused. Should it say “To add 0.1 mg/L ammonium” or "To add 0.1 ppm ammonium”?

I have a 40g with 5 nitrates. Supported by a couple Neonitro doses a week.

 

[joseph.timbs]

Does light and/or air exposure significantly affect the ammonium solution enough to consider for auto dosers?

 

[rishma]

Does light and/or air exposure significantly affect the ammonium solution enough to consider for auto dosers?

This is kind of an open question. I am pretty sure it loses potency but i dont know how much. My lid to my dosing container is fairly tight but not a seal. When I first mixed it up my cabinet smelled strongly of ammonia but that dissipated. Surely I lost some ammonia to the air but I don’t know how much. It was still an effective nitrogen source an my bottle lasted nearly a year, though I am unsure how much lower of a dose I am getting today vs when it was fresh.

 

[Patx]

This is kind of an open question. I am pretty sure it loses potency but i dont know how much. My lid to my dosing container is fairly tight but not a seal. When I first mixed it up my cabinet smelled strongly of ammonia but that dissipated. Surely I lost some ammonia to the air but I don’t know how much. It was still an effective nitrogen source an my bottle lasted nearly a year, though I am unsure how much lower of a dose I am getting today vs when it was fresh.

If you have a test,
you could test your old batch (dose some in 1l)
And do the same test when you do a "fresh batch".

 

[rishma]

If you have a test,
you could test your old batch (dose some in 1l)
And do the same test when you do a "fresh batch".

I don’t have a test, but that’s a good idea. Someone with an ammonia test kit could figure this out for us.

 

[EnterName]

Disregard comment. I have it worked out now.


Alright, out of neonitro and willing to give ammonia dosing a shot. I have the pure baking soda from Amazon suggested. 20g/L solution. Where I’m confused is what’s the suggested increase I a day? I can take it from there, just confused by ppm, mg, etc. terminology.

To add 0.1 mg/L ammonia to an aquarium, you would need to add 2.3 mL of either stock solution to a 100 L (26 gallon) aquarium. You may need to add this amount multiply times per day to dose enough.

This is where I am confused. Should it say “To add 0.1 mg/L ammonium” or "To add 0.1 ppm ammonium”?

I have a 40g with 5 nitrates. Supported by a couple Neonitro doses a week.

You need baking ammonia (NH₄HCO₃). Baking soda (NaHCO₃) will just increase alkalinity but not ammonia.

ppm can either mean mg/kg or mg/L but the difference is small for reef tanks. 1L tank water is roughly 1.023kg (at 35ppt salinity). It therefore doesn't matter if you add 0.1mg/L or 0.1mg/kg ammonia, it would be a difference of only 0.1 ⋅ 1.023 - 0.1 = 0.0023mg.

In your 40gal (≈ 151L) tank you would need a total of 15.1mg NH₄ to reach 0.1mg/L or 15.4mg NH₄ to reach 0.1mg/kg. This is 66.2mg or 67.5mg NH₄HCO₃.

In the original recipe 20g NH₄HCO₃ is dissolved in 1L or 1kg RO/DI (the difference between L and kg is negligible for RO/DI), so you would need 3.31mL or 3.38mL of the created stock solution to reach target levels.

As you can see, the dosing error will probably be much larger than the difference between mg/L and mg/kg, as dosing a 0.07mL difference precisely is quite difficult.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I have a bottle of KZ amino acids I’ve had a long time and haven’t used it. I was thinking of adding them to my ammonium bicarbonate bottle when I mix up a new batch.

Any reason not to? I’ll do a quick compatibility test but I don’t expect a precipitate. More worried about growing funk.

Seems reasonable to me.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Does light and/or air exposure significantly affect the ammonium solution enough to consider for auto dosers?

Evaporation is the concern. If closed, it is stable.

 

[joseph.timbs]

You need baking ammonia (NH4HCO3). Baking soda (NaHCO3) will just increase alkalinity but not ammonia.

ppm can either mean mg/kg or mg/L but the difference is small for reef tanks. 1L tank water is roughly 1.023kg (at 35ppt salinity). It therefore doesn't matter if you add 0.1mg/L or 0.1mg/kg ammonia, it would be a difference of only 0.1 • 1.023 - 0.1 = 0.0023mg.

In your 40gal (≈ 151L) tank you would need a total of 15.1mg NH4 to reach 0.1mg/L or 15.4mg NH4 to reach 0.1mg/kg. This is 66.2mg or 67.5mg NH4HCO3.

In the original recipe 20g NH4HCO3 is dissolved in 1L or 1kg RO/DI (the difference between L and kg is negligible for RO/DI), so you would need 3.31mL or 3.38mL of the created stock solution to reach target levels.

As you can see, the dosing error will probably be much larger than the difference between mg/L and mg/kg, as dosing a 0.07mL difference precisely is quite difficult.

Thanks for the help. Yeah I have the recommended Amazon baking Anmonia.

 

[joseph.timbs]

Evaporation is the concern. If closed, it is stable.

Preciate it. You’re the man.

 

[joseph.timbs]

Thanks for the help. Yeah I have the recommended Amazon baking Anmonia.

Yo entername or Randy, one more question. What about testing? Still Nitrate kits. Not sure if that makes any sense.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Yo entername or Randy, one more question. What about testing? Still Nitrate kits. Not sure if that makes any sense.

I’d test nitrate, not ammonia, to decide how much dosing is suitable.

 

[joseph.timbs]

I’d test nitrate, not ammonia, to decide how much dosing is suitable.

Ok.

 

[rishma]

I dosed the amino acids for a week to see what happened. I didn’t observe anything. My ammonia/urea was offline an my nitrate was slowing falling toward zero.

I mixed some ammonia and aminos a dosed yesterday. I got a bacterial bloom! I noticed my pH went way down after dosing yesterday afternoon and the water got cloudy. I turned on my outdoor aeration and it arrested the decline.

Pretty interesting. The amount of ammonia I dosed (volume) was the same as I have been dosing for months except without urea. I had stopped dosing for about 10 days dues to cyano.

My guess is the sudden restart of ammonia and the fact that it was freshly mixed and full strength (no evaporation) triggered the bacterial bloom. I don’t think it had anything to do with the aminos mixed in.

I think today I’ll cut the dose in half and try again.

Merry Christmas!