Randy Holmes-Farley
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My Tank Thread
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Yes, and that value for organic metabolism is going to be very low, right? I can't see how this could be worse than a fish excreting ammonia.
Let's assume the tank water looks like NSW:
Dissolved organic nitrogen in the global surface ocean: Distribution and fate
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agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
" The surface ocean (10 m) distribution of DON is presented in Figure 1. Values ranged from 2 to 7 umol kg-1 (with a mean for all observations of 4.4 +/- 0.5 umol kg-1); however, 75% of all observations fell within the narrow range of 3.8 to 4.8 umol kg-1 (indicated by the green colors in Figure 1). "
So assume 4.4 umol/kg
That's ~75 ug/L, or 0.08 ppm ammonia if all that organic N became ammonia.
That assumes one converted the entire tank of organic nitrogen at once. Even if you stripped the entire tank worth of organic over 24 h, you are only boosting ammonia by 0.003 ppm per hour.
Sounds like a fish peeing to me. Not a "concern" for a reef. lol
Obviously, only a small amount is converted at once.
Maybe the DNRA amount is significant. Maybe not.