VTDrew
New Member
OK, so just going to butt in as a chemist. Past esperience is lab manager for ETL, an environmental laboratory near NYC that analyzed waste water and industrial effluent.
Your analysis at the two hour mark is inaccurate. The way most of these chemicals work is they bind to the anylite (ammonia) and that causes it to reflect light differently. If you look deeply into your color charts, its nothing more then an intensification of the same color as the concentration increases. This is why, with these tests, it is uber important to use test tubes of the same diameter that the test came with. Being accurate to the graduation mark is also important, but a discrepency on volume won't be the end of the world. As time goes on once the test started, many of these chemicals react differently. Some become unbound reverting to the zero mark, some become unstable and outright break down. Others will seek out similar chemicals in the water binding up and causing an "increase" in concentration.
The first step you add is a prep chemical. It most likely binds to the ammonia, the second step is the indicator which binds to the compound created causing your color. it can work a million ways, but I'm keeping this as basic as I can. It is important you get the concentrations correct (especially since we don't know the actual mechanism at work here). Turn the bottles all the way up and count your drops carefully. Follow times strictly and shake as instructed. Anything can mess this up (for all we know, if it says turn and you shake, the air introduced can mess up the test).
What you can do to resolve this.....find some ammonia free water! Test it, if you get 0.25ppm...then your indicators are probably bad!
Send it off to a local enviro lab, because of time sensitivity of many tests, these labs are everywhere because waste water must be tested often within 6 hours (if testing for chromium) and 24 hours for BOD. Request an ammonia test. Probably will run you about $25 or less. While your at it you can request nitrate, nitrites, phosphates and the works. A full spectrum test would run less then $200. Nitrite is a cheap test, actually done similar to how we do it at home, Nitrate is a little more expensive and will vary depending on if they do column reduction or a metered test. Most jurisdictions don't permit for the meter yet, so your likely to pay the big bucks for the column...but in my experience the meter is just fine. TKN will give you total nitrogen including protein bound....not necessary but would be a fun way to establish overfeeding....subtract free nitrogen compunds from your TKN reading, this would tell you how much is bound in proteins. Establish protein % in your food based on AA %, back calculate the weights do some more funky math I'm not in the mood to think about and you could actually figure out how much food is just rotting away un eaten....and yes, you can do this to your gravel too!
Your analysis at the two hour mark is inaccurate. The way most of these chemicals work is they bind to the anylite (ammonia) and that causes it to reflect light differently. If you look deeply into your color charts, its nothing more then an intensification of the same color as the concentration increases. This is why, with these tests, it is uber important to use test tubes of the same diameter that the test came with. Being accurate to the graduation mark is also important, but a discrepency on volume won't be the end of the world. As time goes on once the test started, many of these chemicals react differently. Some become unbound reverting to the zero mark, some become unstable and outright break down. Others will seek out similar chemicals in the water binding up and causing an "increase" in concentration.
The first step you add is a prep chemical. It most likely binds to the ammonia, the second step is the indicator which binds to the compound created causing your color. it can work a million ways, but I'm keeping this as basic as I can. It is important you get the concentrations correct (especially since we don't know the actual mechanism at work here). Turn the bottles all the way up and count your drops carefully. Follow times strictly and shake as instructed. Anything can mess this up (for all we know, if it says turn and you shake, the air introduced can mess up the test).
What you can do to resolve this.....find some ammonia free water! Test it, if you get 0.25ppm...then your indicators are probably bad!
Send it off to a local enviro lab, because of time sensitivity of many tests, these labs are everywhere because waste water must be tested often within 6 hours (if testing for chromium) and 24 hours for BOD. Request an ammonia test. Probably will run you about $25 or less. While your at it you can request nitrate, nitrites, phosphates and the works. A full spectrum test would run less then $200. Nitrite is a cheap test, actually done similar to how we do it at home, Nitrate is a little more expensive and will vary depending on if they do column reduction or a metered test. Most jurisdictions don't permit for the meter yet, so your likely to pay the big bucks for the column...but in my experience the meter is just fine. TKN will give you total nitrogen including protein bound....not necessary but would be a fun way to establish overfeeding....subtract free nitrogen compunds from your TKN reading, this would tell you how much is bound in proteins. Establish protein % in your food based on AA %, back calculate the weights do some more funky math I'm not in the mood to think about and you could actually figure out how much food is just rotting away un eaten....and yes, you can do this to your gravel too!
