Ammonia Vs Ammonia

Fisses · Oct 5, 2009

is it safe to say that if ammonoa is found in a fish tank, it is lethal to fish, and if ammonium is found then its safe??

and the API water test for ammonia, will that pick up just ammonia, or both ammonia AND ammonium??

tropic_john · Oct 5, 2009

products such as ammo-lock turn ammonia into ammonium, however, both will show up on test kits... at least I think so

MewMew42 · Oct 5, 2009

the way ammonium is present is if your PH is below 7, ammonium is still toxic but just not as much as ammonia

eg, if your PH is 8 and your ammonia is 0.5 that would be very toxic!
but if your PH is 6 it would be ammoniumif it showed up as 0.25 it would not be as problematic

It still shows up on API tests!

Fisses · Oct 5, 2009

so even though the API test kit is for Ammonia, ammonium will still show up???

MewMew42 · Oct 5, 2009

aye thats what ive been told as it is made up of the same compounds ammonia is NH3 ammonium is NH4

Just had a quick look at the bottle it has both chemical names on it so it does both =]

just do your PH and that will give you an indication of which one it is!

Fisses · Oct 5, 2009

the only reason im asking, is that a friends shrimp died, so i said they could use my tests and make sure levels r ok.

ammonia test went up to about 5ppm, no nitrite, and nitrate was a little high but due a water change anyway. PH was 6.0 though.

i didnt even know there was such thing as ammonium in tropical tanks!

Truck · Oct 5, 2009

ammonia is always present in a tank, whether you like it or not.

ammonia and ammonium are both toxic to fish, but ammonium is less toxic, but then again, after an ammonia spike you may get a a nitrite spike, nitrite is more toxic in a lower PH than high.

ammonia and ammonium should both show up on a good quality test kit.

5ppm of ammonia, shows a problem, either an over stocked tank, or an uncycled tank, most probably the latter

MewMew42 · Oct 5, 2009

shrimps are very sensitive to water quality so regardless of whether it was ammonia or ammonia it would have harmed them

if the tank was cycled a high ammonia/ammonium reading will then be turned into nitrite which is very toxic regardless of the PH more so the lower end, so its not a win win situation if people think that they can keep their PH down to avoid ammonia there will always be problems in the long term

Edited

Fisses · Oct 5, 2009

truckasauras123 said:
ammonia is always present in a tank, whether you like it or not.

ammonia and ammonium are both toxic to fish, but ammonium is less toxic, but then again, after an ammonia spike you may get a a nitrite spike, nitrite is more toxic in a lower PH than high.

ammonia and ammonium should both show up on a good quality test kit.

5ppm of ammonia, shows a problem, either an over stocked tank, or an uncycled tank, most probably the latter

its a cycled tank, but a shrimp died which is why the water was tested.

throgh water changes over a day we got the water down to 0.15ppm so all is good, ive just never heard of ammonium!!

Fisses · Oct 5, 2009

truckasauras123 said:
Fisses said:

ok ok come on children...

i just wanted to know the difference and how toxic they both are to fish as we was wonderin why the fish was ok yet there was high ammonia, but obviously after looking on the net it must infact be ammonium!

Click to expand...

shrimp are more sensitive than fish IMO, i dont mean to come across as behaving like a child, i was just wondering what the point in that reply was. (the last sentence)

ok ok, we all have different opinions which was what i was after, so thank you

three-fingers · Oct 5, 2009

Ammonia will always exist in our aquariums at concentrations immeasurable by out test kits,

Ammonia exists at equilibrium with ammonium (which is non-toxic). The more alkaline the water is, the more this equilibrium shifts towards the ammonia side of things.

So if you are going through a fish-in cycle or similar situation, more alkaline water would mean that there is more ammonia instead of ammonium, so more detrimental to the fish. This has been cited as a reason to why many people keeping very sensitive shrimp such as high-grade CRS like to keep the water slightly acidic, in case of ammonia spike (which could otherwise wipe out some very expensive shrimp).

However, adjusting the pH to reduce the concentration of ammonia versus ammonium is generally a bad idea, as it would appear our filter bacteria are slower to multiply at a lower pH (there's a good write up on that here somewhere).

Most test kits read both ammonia and ammonium as one, while the card will just say "ammonia". Seachem produces a kit that read both separately.

There are also various "ammonia removers" that convert ammonia into ammonium (such as Seachem Prime, Seachem AmGaurd, API Ammolock...list goes on), and when using these in an emergency, the Seachem test kit would be most useful.

Filter bacteria can utilise both ammonia and ammonium.