Gravel Releasing Ammonia...

[Dr. Bogger]

I have been having problems cycling my aquarium, its been over a month now, and someone that has been trying to help me, told me to do a little test... so this is what i did:

I took a handfull of gravel, put it in a plastic cup, filled it with fresh dechlorinated water (that has no ammonia)... let it set... here are the results:

After 24 hours, the ammonia in the water in the cup was 0.50 ppm
After 48 hours, the ammonia was 2.0...

The person who told me to do this, said that gravel, if not cured at a certen temp long enough, will release ammonia into the water...

Does anyone know anymore information regarding this that may help me out?

 

[littlest]

never heard of it ... but you might want to consider some other causes before going blaming the gravel out-right.
Was the gravel from a tank that contains fish? If so it could be possibly be that the the gravel had some food waste/fish waste on it which broke down in the glass and released ammonia.

Do you have chloramines in your water? If so, and if you used a dechlorinator which breaks the chloramine bond, this would have released ammonia. (I've done this test before and you do get a definite reading of ammonia)

maybe do the test again with a glass of non-dechlorinated water and the same gravel
and with dechlorinated water and the same type of gravel but gravel that's not been in a tank (if you have any)
and do a test with no gravel but with declhorinator

 

[Dr. Bogger]

Yes, it was from a tank with fish in it, however, i did rinse the gravel before i put it in the cup...

As for the chloramines, Im not sure if my water contains that or not, but all i know, is my tap water has never released any ammonia after being dechlorinated, and like i said, i tested the dechlorinated water before adding it to the cup... it was 0

and not to mention, the dechlorinated water has been sitting in a gallon jug for about a week, before i added it to the cup, so im sure when i tested it, i would have noticed the ammonia present by then.

 

[smmetz]

Put a lid over the cup so the ammonia fairy cannot drop any into the tank. She is a sneaky one..

lol, seriously, sounds like quite a mystery. I never heard of gravel releaseing ammonia by itself either.