Help Reading Ammonia

[TacticalKnight]

I am having trouble matching the ammonia color to the chart. Is it 0ppm or .5 I can't tell.

 

[Reefer1978]

I'd say 0.25-.5.

 

[Reefer1978]

In first picture looks dead on 0.5.

 

[Reefer1978]

Where in Bergen County are you @TacticalKnight ?

 

[PatW]

I think 0. The API ammonia test is not well regarded. You might think of getting another test like Salifert.

 

[rmurken]

I don’t think it’s .5, but the difference between .25 and 0 is impossible to discern. API Ammonia is great for FW but this is the exact scenario that makes it nerve wracking for SW.

 

[taricha]

close enough to call it zero.
I assume this is in the context of cycling - I'd say it did not clearly show ammonia.
In the context of an established tank, you won't get useful info from the test like that.

 

[homer1475]

I voted 0.

API always has the slight green tinge to it in SW. A 0 reading is never bright yellow like it is in FW.

 

[taricha]

In the context of an established tank, you won't get useful info from the test like that.

I take this back. You can distinguish a couple of tenths ppm ammonia. You just need a known blank.
Take a water bottle of your tank water, add a finger-sized sprig of chaeto, a sprinkle of GAC, add one drop of vodka. Put in an airstone and give it light.
I did this with tank water spiked to 0.25ppm ammonia and it went to solid zero in a couple of hours.
So then you'll have a known "zero" you can compare to. Then you can tell the difference of a couple of tenths ppm ammmonia.

 

[brandon429]

Also handy here

We can tell what ammonia is at in the tank if we can see a pic of the tank that reading came from



ammonia unsafe in your tank is cloudy water, animals dying, fish darting about or hovering at surface for air due to gill damage, tight retraction of corals, CUC dead as they’re weak to non control. Something above hundredths ppm is happening


vs


ammonia running in the thousandths ppm as if you had a working seneye meter reading ammonia: happy fish clean water corals opened cuc acting fine- every tank I’ve ever seen posting those levels above.


there is no middle ground, it’s not possible for reefs to hold at .25 or .5, not even 1st day cycling reefs (using bottle bac, per seneye tracked cycles)

free ammonia either compounds fast or is totally controlled by our surface area no middle ground allowed


so, post a tank pic to reveal your ammonia levels we wouldn’t need any tester to discern the level. If this is a cycling tank, discerning a start date then we only need to know if you dosed ammonia higher than that and it came down to that level above, to know if you are done cycling.


i like how we all have customized ways to read api lol that’s awesome. Five years ago all this bacteria would be stated dead, tank not ready, stalled etc solely off that reading above with no tank pic context. Off that one read, he would be advised to add or buy bottled bac to unstick the reading


I vote .5 for the reading, but .005 for the actual tank nh3

post pics we can add this to our false stalled cycle thread when updated