We should use the collective power of the chem forum to prove or deny the possibility of sustained .25 ammonia in reefing

[brandon429]

Ammonia at .25 PPM. Water change or wait?

.

www.reef2reef.com

2021 first case study.

what the OP is experiencing is what we expect.


Dr Tim has not told us that sticking at .25 is impossible, so we still hold that it is. No foul there. Op is working from the info he‘s been given. I cannot find one video on YouTube saying a stuck cycle is impossible (all our pages here) but I can find one that says they can stick, and that nitrite matters.


so look at the refereeing above from folks

half agree it’s false half agree it could be right

how can something so impactful as nh3 noncontrol be evaluated polar oppositely between refs? Does any context from the reef matter at all or do we assess free ammonia from an unverified api kit?

if you take an animal in kidney distress to four different veterinarians you get 4x resounding agreeing responses, they use objective evals


it works like this in reefing, but troubleshooters in our hobby are using dated science and bad kits

team this is 2021

reefs either stick at .25 and you need more bottle bac, or they don’t, we need to make up our mind on what the rules are and then inform the lawmakers for cycles of the new updates. Awaiting formal teachers to update cycling science accurately is clearly going to be a long wait


bottle bac sales will drop when truth comes out and is accepted by referees who make recommends to peers.


reef tank cycles do not stall. .25 is a minutes-long interval on the way to a total crash or total safety afforded by the active surface area, that’s the rule. There is no time surface area is able to control waste but leaves .25 unused, free ammonia is a much-needed substrate for metabolic machinery in bacterial systems and none is left to waste, unused.

 

[brandon429]

Anyone reading, post a thread you think is stalled from any forum and we will unstall it and track outcomes for proof.

if it’s one of the forums I’m banned from (rule updaters unwelcomed routinely) then I’ll list the steps to unstick it and you can relay the goods. Since no reef stalls at any time, this won’t be terribly hard.


if we can find an instance that confirms a typical cycle arrangement has stalled at .25 then this thread can be shut down/ unused/retired, the claim is that there are no outliers.

 

[Dan_P]

There have been ten .25 fearing posts in the last 24 hours in the general forum, we are backsliding vs moving forward in cycling science, so bump.

We could start using a modified version of the API total ammonia test and be fooled no more I just ran the modified test today that @taricha and I developed some time ago. I tested aquarium water (left vial in photo) and aquarium water plus ammonium chloride with a total ammonia concentration of 0.23 ppm (right vial). Neat, right?

Here is the method. 5 mL water sample, 4 drops of reagent one, mix thoroughly, and then three drops reagent 2, one drop at a time with a little mixing before adding the next drop. This seems to minimize hthe development of the yellow color. Hold time 1 hour. If the precipitate is uneven or has separated, shake up the test sample. Jonathan may chime in with a method refinement.

We have been able to detect 0.05 ppm total NH3 on a good day, but that is pushing the limit of the test.

Just a reminder that free ammonia makes up a small fraction of total ammonia. There are tables to figure this out for a given pH and temperature, but I use a figure of 10%. This means a sample with a 0.23 ppm total ammonia content will have about 0.02 ppm free ammonia. Someone will chime in to refine this.

 

[brandon429]

Wonderful, thats specifically progress being made. And it’s using the current tool set in a more exacting manner which res publica can do
Will that work for Red Sea Dan

any nessler type kit should work the same is that right

 

[Dan_P]

Wonderful, thats specifically progress being made. And it’s using the current tool set in a more exacting manner which res publica can do
Will that work for Red Sea Dan

any nessler type kit should work the same is that right

I have a Red Sea Kit. I will look at that and report back here. Nessler chemistry is totally different. I do not see a comparable opportunity to upgrade it.

 

[brandon429]

Oh I see I thought api was nslr too. Gotcha.

 

[taricha]

I have a Red Sea Kit. I will look at that and report back here.

I think red sea might've flipped the two liquid reagents, i.e. high pH reagent as first liquid.

 

[Dan_P]

I think red sea might've flipped the two liquid reagents, i.e. high pH reagent as first liquid.

OK, thanks for the heads up.

 

[brandon429]

Dan and Taricha, would you guys give a quick comment on this pattern Ive noticed:

reefing hobby gets carte blanche pass to claim nh3 as inconsequential.

but for human/kidneys/nephrology its darn sure not

same for cats, dogs, parrots

nh3 is the quick killer, biosystems evolved tight tolerances across the 'kingdom

but in reefing, how many hundreds of thousands of symptomless stuck ammonia threads exist

wouldn't our organisms be more sensitive than say a bloodhound for example

our surface area dynamics are the nephridia or kidneys of the reef tank, same tight tolerances is my firm bet even though we all struggle to get basic accurate measures in this branch of science. medical assessments have no trouble identifying our blood borne free ammonia for decades

in my opinion that's a big picture way of showing that free ammonia sticking above whatever the real baseline is false, and now we get to hash things into the hundredths or thousandths if lucky, but on the second note I can't see how reef aquariums would adapt and evolve into a wide-ranging acceptance of nh3 moreso than any other group of animals

what's your take

the entire thesis of my thread here is based on this assumption for lack of a better measure.

 

[Dan_P]

Wonderful, thats specifically progress being made. And it’s using the current tool set in a more exacting manner which res publica can do
Will that work for Red Sea Dan

any nessler type kit should work the same is that right

I have done a little work on the Red Sea kit. It looks like it can be modified for greater sensitivity. Here is what it looks like when the API adjustment is made to Red Sea, i.e., same amount of powder reagent A, add only 3 drops of reagent C, and then add 3 drops reagent B, one at a time with mixing after each drop.

The center vial (1st photo) is aquarium water, 3 drop modification, left vial is standard Red Sea of tank water at 0.3 ppm NH3, the right vial is the 3 drop version of Red Sea at 0.3 ppm NH3. With a bit more reduction of reagent B, the zero will be closer to colorless.

If you had a zero NH3 sample, you could confidently detect 0.1 ppm NH3. See second photo. Vial on right is tank water at 0.1 ppm NH3.

 

[brandon429]

Well done custom chemistry Dan this is the #2 kit for all reports, thousands of cycles daily are decided with this kit

 

[brandon429]

Can we see the color card too important tie in for the hue change

 

[brandon429]

Also helpful: if we can find some consistency in tests now with the dilution option I’d be happy to accept hundredths as the working conversion and not thousandths if that’s what the measures prove to be in post-cycle reef tanks using rocks and or sand like we all do, to excess.

repeated whole tank testing factoring loss rates of initial bioload or even symptomatic behavior shows we are working with a completely consistent ability between tanks of all sizes, to attain and hold nh3 conversions when a cycle chart says it will especially with the costly boosters we use. I’m so interested in the variability or invariability of this tank to tank, diluting seems to helps streamline close measures. Soon we can try on some stuck cycle inquiries

 

[Dan_P]

Can we see the color card too important tie in for the hue change

The color card with the modification becomes almost useless. This is why we are using the Hanna low range silicate checker to measure the color intensity. Let me give this more thought.

 

[brandon429]

Oh I see. after tan conversion it’s a mighty fine change I see


if you find consistency or inconsistency among a few random reef water samples using the remote reader let us know / gold input

 

[taricha]

I have done a little work on the Red Sea kit. It looks like it can be modified for greater sensitivity. Here is what it looks like when the API adjustment is made to Red Sea, i.e., same amount of powder reagent A, add only 3 drops of reagent C, and then add 3 drops reagent B, one at a time with mixing after each drop.

Fantastic work. the clarity really makes distinguishing color a much easier task for the eyes.
If you don't beat me to it, I'll take a pic of a set of standards 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4 with the color card in the background.
The color card of course looks nothing like the final less-yellow product in this modification - just there to give people's eyeballs a shared color/intensity standard.

By the way, how much Red sea reagent A powder does it take to remove the cloudiness in the modified API test? One scoop? Three?

 

[Dan_P]

Fantastic work. the clarity really makes distinguishing color a much easier task for the eyes.
If you don't beat me to it, I'll take a pic of a set of standards 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4 with the color card in the background.
The color card of course looks nothing like the final less-yellow product in this modification - just there to give people's eyeballs a shared color/intensity standard.

By the way, how much Red sea reagent A powder does it take to remove the cloudiness in the modified API test? One scoop? Three?

I am afraid that I beat you to it. This morning I prepared standards and ran them through all my Checkers. I am going to write it up today.

Hey, I did come across that annoying baseline problem we found while modifying the API kit. The chemistry detects amazingly small amounts of ammonia but quantitation is impossible. The standard curve goes horizontal somewhere below 0.1 ppm. You can visually detect a color change for 0.05 ppm but the color intensity is about the same as 0.1 ppm.

Here is the recipe for a 5 mL sample:

0.05 mL (Salifert red scoop) of powder
2 drops reagent C
2 drops reagent B
Development time 1 hour (I measured the color development curve)

 

[Malcontent]

Here you go...

 

[brandon429]

Excellent reading, let’s see a full tank shot in order to know if the reading is correct / came from a bucket of .25 water / need context

nice $ hach thank you for posting a first. That’s the first hach determination I’ve seen posted ever. curious to know context of reading, pics of the tank w make a nice tie in


whatever water that came from should have a nice smell, about like coming up on a dead skunk but far enough away you doubt it just for a second

curious if you can show being stuck via motion and not a single test: drive free ammonia up, post pic, show it coming down and stalling back at .25 in the presence of suspected activated surface area, test it if possible

 

[taricha]

Hey, I did come across that annoying baseline problem we found while modifying the API kit. The chemistry detects amazingly small amounts of ammonia but quantitation is impossible. The standard curve goes horizontal somewhere below 0.1 ppm. You can visually detect a color change for 0.05 ppm but the color intensity is about the same as 0.1 ppm.

hmmm...
This phenomenon - repeating across different brands' kits is probably the source of most of the ghost "0.25"/ "0.2" measurements on API/Red sea.
Because there nothing on the color card between 0 and 0.25, and the standard version of the kit is lower in sensitivity, and the cloudiness makes interpretation harder, and the kit reacts in some way to vanishingly small amounts of ammonia-
Put it all together, and we have many people who look at something that may be way below 0.1, and because it's clearly not zero, it looks more like the next lowest on the kit - 0.25.