Harmful Amounts Of Ammonia

[Fishy friend2]

What do you think is a harmful amount of ammonia, I already think anything above 0 is harmful but would like your opinions on it.

Please leave some some feedback if you vote

I always thought anything above 0 was harmful to a fish long term that's why I voted for 0

 

[Liquid skills]

Personally i dont like to risk it so i keep it at 0ppm

 

[Fishy friend2]

Okay thank you for your input, and I agree with you

 

[Prime Ordeal]

The answer depends upon temperature, pH and salinity so the poll, as it stands, is unanswerable. In a mature, cycled tank however, measured with the hobby test kits like API, it must always be zero.

 

[soybean]

In a mature, cycled tank however, measured with the hobby test kits like API, it must always be zero.

I think this is the kind of average freshwater set up the op has in mind when asking the question, rather than one which brings salinity etc into the equation.

 

[shi24137]

I try to keep mine at 0ppm as well

 

[smokeyjo]

Who said 1 lol I try my best to keep it to 0

 

[Fishy friend2]

For everyone who chose .25 please tell me why.

 

[MisssMarie]

I chose 0!

 

[hughessomefish]

Anything above 0 is a killer of fish,period. I would bet the number one killer of aquarium fish is ammonia.

 

[snake007]

I voted anything above 0.

 

[N0body Of The Goat]

I voted for 0.25mg/l simply on the grounds that if my API ammonia test gives a reading that has a green tinge rather than yellow, there are enough ammonia and ammonium ions being detected by the test chemicals to give a colourmetric change and therefore I should do a large water change.

Classic case last night, noticed my young Hoplo Catfish were breathing rather heavy, despite giving the Rio240 its ~50% standard weekly water change on Friday morning. Took a water sample and tested it, the colour result was far from absolute green (0.25mg/l), but compared side by side against a white card with a definite yellow (zero reading) there was a green hue. Given that I have more free time over this bank holiday weekend than normal, I decided to syphon out all but ~4cm of water and replace with overdosed Seachem Prime water, rather than do a ~50% water change and be more likely to need further action once I'm back at work.

But as Prime Ordeal wrote, test kit results do not show the full picture of how toxic the tank water is when we see a reading different from the zero colour, they indicate the total concentration of lethal NH[sub]3[/sub][sup]+[/sup] (ammonia) and non-lethal NH[sub]4[/sub] (ammonium) in the test sample. The amount of free ammonia ions is dependent upon temperature, pH (and in the case of brakish/marine systems salinity). The more alkaline and warmer your freshwater tank water is, the greater the ammount of lethal ammonia ions will be present for any test kit reading, so fishkeepers living on the UK's south coast using their tap water should be more concerned about a 0.25mg/l reading in their 26C Malawi setup than say someone keeping a temperate 18C setup in Scotland's soft acidic tap water regions.

A little calculator I came across...
http/www.petgoldfish.net/ammonia-calculator.html

 

[ian]

can i just throw a little spanner in the works and tell you there is ALWAYS ammonia present in your water. I voted above .25 as there is always above 0 in your tanks believe it or not. If there was nothing, how would your filter bacteria survive.

 

[minnnt]

can i just throw a little spanner in the works and tell you there is ALWAYS ammonia present in your water. I voted above .25 as there is always above 0 in your tanks believe it or not. If there was nothing, how would your filter bacteria survive.

I voted the same, for a similar reason. ANY ammonia is dangerous, but under 0.25 will cause irritation which is still bad, but it isn't like it is going to burn your fish. If you get this reading like Goat says, you know you need to do a water change as you ideally want the reading to be as close to 0.

Alot of peoples tap water contains some ammonia, so there will always be some present at some point. The idea being that your filter will keep it at zero as it feeds off of the ammonia being passed through it.

 

[Prime Ordeal]

but under 0.25 will cause irritation which is still bad, but it isn't like it is going to burn your fish.

However, if up to 0.25ppm is all ammonia, rather than ammonium, it's going to kill your fish very quickly so that statement isn't true.

With the hobby test kits we use at home the reading should ALWAYS be zero (in a cycled tank).