The Ammonia Test

I’ve asked a couple of members to do a series of ammonia tests. I’ve decided to start this thread in order to explain the motivation behind these requests, and to invite any other members interested in participating in the testing to post your results here so that we may all learn something from them if there is indeed anything to be learned at all.

My main reasons for asking for this test and how it may affect tanks and ammonia tap water test results are probably best described in post #24

Here is what prompted this testing idea. (If you grow tired of my babble, scroll down to the bottom of this post for testing instructions.)

A few months ago I needed to put a fish into quarantine. I gave the q tank a very large water change and placed cycled media into the filter and transferred the fish. Several hours later, I noticed the fish was not acting right. I was positive I put in plenty of cycled media but the first thing I grabbed was my ammonia test kit. Sure enough there was about .5 ammonia in the tank. I grabbed more cycled media, and put it into the filter, and proceeded with another large water change. In a short time the fish started acting worse, so I tested the water again. This time the reading was over 1ppm. I told my husband, “this is VERY strange! I KNOW I have enough cycled media in there for him, but the water is testing higher for ammonia right after the water change, than before it!” It became obvious my beneficial bacteria had already taken care of a lot of the ammonia from the first water change, and my second water change did nothing more than increase it again.

I immediately went down to the basement and tested the holding tank I keep the RO water for the fish in. I initially expected to see a dead mouse in it or something of that nature, but that wasn’t the case. It tested over 1ppm, closer to 2. It’s a previously owned homemade 65 gallon tank, so I thought maybe they used the wrong silicone in it and even though I had been using it for a while, I just never noticed it accumulating. I drained the tank and rinsed it with tons of water, but left a couple of inches in it to see if maybe the silicone was leaching or if it was something else causing the problem. (A week later, this tank measured about 4ppm with no cover on it.)

Next I tested the hard water I use for the mix. I keep it in pails with lids on. Result, 0 ammonia. Tested the RO from the drinking tap, and it tested 0 ammonia. Now I really was thinking it was a silicone related problem. Then my husband suggest maybe it was an air quality problem. We had been doing work on the house, sealing things up tighter and using silicone which off gasses ammonia while it’s curing. We have cats, and I clean the windows, mirrors, and all other glass surfaces with Windex. We also thought maybe other products we were using on the house might also contribute to air quality problems. On a whim, I tested the dehumidifier water. It tested 4ppm for ammonia. I freaked and got on the internet. I typed in, “dehumidifier water ammonia” for the search words. When you type that set of words into google, a whole bunch of different fish forum sites pop up about people using or wanting to use dehumidifier water for their fish tanks, thinking it’s just like distilled water. Thinking it’s pure and clean. Then they’d decide to test the water just to be safe or for curiosity sake, and levels reported are anywhere in the range of 0ppm, .5ppm all the way up to 4ppm, in their dehumidifier water.

I don’t like to jump to conclusions, at least I try very hard not to, so I wondered if the refrigeration coils that condense the water so that it drips into the tray somehow contaminated the water. I then decided to just set bowls of water out on the cupboard to see if ammonia developed in them. One from the hot water tank, one cold, one of the water before it gets to the softener which is what I use for the fish, and one RO. After sitting out for a day, they all tested positive for levels of ammonia. Tests the next day were even higher. Next we bought some spring water and some distilled water. Same results. I set some water outside to see if it reacted the same way, but it only developed a trace amount. And the pails of water with lids on them didn’t accumulate any ammonia. So, I went back to using jugs and pails with lids for holding the fish RO, and they always test 0. The water we keep in the fridge also always tests 0.

So now FishLore members, I’m asking… Is this water really taking on ammonia from the air? Is it due to something I haven't thought of? is this possibly something to check, to see if maybe others are having problems with their tanks, due to something like this? If this is happening in some member’s tanks, maybe more media needs to be used to encourage a larger bacterial colony to manage the extra ammonia, or maybe the tank needs to be covered in better to reduce air contact. It may not have anything to do with trace amounts of ammonia we've all seen on the forum, but possibly it might explain some or just bring some awareness, especially if people are practicing aging water samples to test ammonia.

I can’t find anything on the internet that says this sort of thing happens. Nothing to explain it, other than material that says ammonia gas dissolves readily in water. I don’t know if passive absorption is something that it does do, but I don’t have any other explanations. I’m certainly open to ideas or suggestions.

If anybody is concerned over air quality, I’m providing a link to some of the NASA plants.


If anybody is curious like me and wants to see where these tests lead, this is what I outlined in one of the member’s threads for testing the samples of water. I do prefer a basic conditioner used for the tests so that ammonia remains testable after its conditioned. The more members that are willing to test, I think will help give us the clearest picture. I'm hoping doing this helps somebody.

Here are a few questions that might have a bearing on results. You can include answers to them with any test results.

#1. Do you have cats?

#2. Does your household use a lot of ammonia based cleaners?

#3. Do you know if your water is treated with chloramine?

If you prefer not to answer these questions, it's ok.

Draw a sample of water. It can be tap, RO, or distilled but not fish tank water. Use a shallow bowl without a lid. A soup bowl would be fine. (This allows more surface area than a drinking glass.)

Test the water sample with your ammonia test kit. (API or other liquid)

Add a little dechlorinator (if you have a basic water conditioner that just removes chlorine, chloramine and heavy metals, use it. If all you have is a product like Prime that detoxifies ammonia etc., use it but let me know what you used). Leave it sit for about 5 minutes or so, stirring occasionally to mix the dechlorinator in well. After 5 minutes or so has passed, test the sample again.

Run an ammonia test again every 24 hours for the next 2 or 3 days. Don't add more dechlorinator.

Take note if the ammonia is increasing and post all results.

You are welcome to test dehumidifiers or other types of water samples. If there are things about the testing method you think should be changed, let me know.

 

I was just filling my humidifier tanks, Holmes Bacteriostat is added, which is 4.5% ammonium chloride.

 

I was just filling my humidifier tanks, Holmes Bacteriostat is added, which is 4.5% ammonium chloride.

That makes sense to disinfect the humidifier.

 

Would one be in a dehumidifier?

Edit: I guess another question would be, if a humidifier has a Holmes Bacteriostat, to sanitize the system, would that potentially be a source of ammonia in the air? I'm sure it would be miniscule if it was, but little bits add up.

 

Would one be in a dehumidifier?

Edit: I guess another question would be, if a humidifier has a Holmes Bacteriostat, to sanitize the system, would that potentially be a source of ammonia in the air? I'm sure it would be miniscule if it was, but little bits add up.

A dehumidifier will not have bactriostat. I have electric forced air heating and the humidity will plummet to 23% without a humidifier to increase it. Ammonia fumes are readily dissolved into water and being lighter than air is distributed throughout the house by the heater. This is just a suggestion as to where some of your ammonia is coming from, that is if you use it. Cats are another major source of ammonia.

 

A dehumidifier will not have bactriostat. I have electric forced air heating and the humidity will plummet to 23% without a humidifier to increase it. Ammonia is readily dissolved into water and being lighter than air is distributed throughout the house by the heater. This is just a suggestion as to where some of your ammonia is coming from, that is if you use it. Cats are another major source of ammonia.

Yes, especially diabetic cats. They are on my list of sources, but I didn't know humidifiers could potentially be one. I don't have one, but others might, so it's good to know. Thank you!

 

I'm always up for some experimenting like this. I'll do a few tests at work and some at home.

At home, we've got four cats. Not to get completely off topic, but my philosophy on cat boxes differs from most of the experts. We have one very large cat box. We've had as many as six cats at one time, and they love this arrangement, and we've had zero problems with any cats urinating or defecating anywhere in the house except their one big kitty box.

But the main point of this is to say that I can set water out in the kitty box room, and presumably expose it to relatively high levels of cat whiz fumes.

I can also test things where I work where conditions will be very different. So that may provide some interesting additional data points.

toosie: I mentioned this in another thread, but I'll mention it here, too. It appears that in addition to nitrate and nitrite being reported in different ways, there are a number of different ammonia tests, and also different ammonia reporting formats as well. Just to keep us all even more confused.

So we need to have people report what test kit they're using for their tests, too, I guess.

Gotta run for the moment. I need to backwash a filter.

 

Considering cats are one of the sources that can contribute to this, I don't think a little cat pee talk is off subject at all. I upgraded to a really big Steralite tote with a doorway cut into one end. You're right, it's so much better than any other cat box.

Somehow different reporting formats doesn't surprise. I use the API kit for ammonia, and without looking at it, from what we have learned with the API nitrate and nitrite test kits, I'll take a wild guess and say that the API probably tests ammonia as ammonia and not ammonia as nitrogen. Would that be correct? Or maybe it's ammonia as ammonium ... Yeah, I can see the potential of a few. You'll have to fill me in.

I'm glad you feel like experimenting, and I'm glad you feel like experimenting a LOT! Your results will be interesting.

Do you have an air exchange or an HVAC system?

 

We switched over to the same kind of thing. A large Sterilite box. I don't remember the size, but it's big. It takes three forty-pound buckets of kitty litter to fill it to a reasonable depth (maybe 6 inches deep). We have it in an unused bathtub in a bathroom that we never used for bathing, anyhow. We use a different bathroom that has a shower and tub for that.

The big Sterilite box fits pretty snugly into the tub and is almost the same height. So the cats have to climb up over the rI'm of the bathtub, and then can step down into the box. I mounted a large shelf that's the same width as the tub about two or three feet above the tub. Then, from that shelf, I have cloth mounted that hangs down to within a foot or so of the edge of the tub. The cloth is also closed off at both ends of the tub. This forms a relatively small opening through which the cats come and go.

Then, I've got a HEPA filter fan thing at one end, which exhausts the air from the cat-box compartment out into the bathroom. So the whole thing is like a laboratory fume hood. (Gee, wonder how I got that idea)? There's always some "face velocity" of air being sucked into the cat box compartment through the relatively small opening formed by the hanging cloth. And any air escaping the compartment must go through the HEPA filter. So it traps most of the kitty litter dust.

I also have a fluorescent light in the cat box compartment so it's always got plenty of light. As funny as it may sound, installing the light so they had good light 24/7 increased nighttime "production" by a very large factor. Hey, nobody likes to navigate their bathroom in total darkness!

Anyhow, the HEPA filter traps dust and cat hair, but doesn't do anything for ammonia fumes or "odors". But it it doesn't make it any worse, either, and the main thing is that it contains a very large percentage of the fine dust that the litter produces.

So I'll have a good four-cat ammonia source, particularly in that bathroom.

I have a forced-air furnace/air-conditioning system. And since it's fairly new, it is set up to circulate air throughout the house constantly at a low fan speed. The fan ramps up to higher speeds, then, depending on what stage the heat or cooling is on. So the air throughout our whole house is probably fairly uniform in ammonia concentration. Still, I'll probably set at least some test bowls in that bathroom.

I don't actually have any aquariums at home right now. I did for years, but that was at least five to ten years ago. Now what I've got is the 55 that I set up at work that has (at this moment) two crayfish and two minnows.

I will do some testing at work, too, since it's a totally different environment and should have no real ammonia sources inside. Plenty of chlorine, but no ammonia.

 

toosie, i've aged water before I switched to prime and made a python and my water readings from having sat in buckets left in the open with no tops on have always read 0 ammonia. I have no cats.

 

toosie, i've aged water before I switched to prime and made a python and my water readings from having sat in buckets left in the open with no tops on have always read 0 ammonia. I have no cats.

Clearly, you need some cats.

 

Jsigmo That sounds like a remarkable setup, and sounds like it works remarkably well too! Makes good use of a spare bathtub. Easy to clean from time to time too, not like a concrete floor. An unsealed concrete floor.

Having you testing is kinda like having 3 people! You are a very efficient worker.

I tend to over filter my aquariums with lots of bio-media. When I was trying to figure this all out, I tested the main tank and it didn't show even a trace of ammonia, so I know my media keeps up with it, and even the Q tank I had setup that day, once I gave it time to rid itself of the ammonia instead of dumping more in, it kept up fine too, but it had a pretty light fish bio-load. My holding tank though, without the bacteria, it just didn't stand a chance. If I would have had an actual filter with media on it, it would have cycled itself without me even realizing it, (talk about an easy fishless cycle!) but all I had in there was something big enough to cause a bit of circulation for the heater.

toosie, i've aged water before I switched to prime and made a python and my water readings from having sat in buckets left in the open with no tops on have always read 0 ammonia. I have no cats.

Thank you Rivieraneo! You're awesome!

 

@Jsigmo That sounds like a remarkable setup, and sounds like it works remarkably well too! Makes good use of a spare bathtub. Easy to clean from time to time too, not like a concrete floor. An unsealed concrete floor.

Having you testing is kinda like having 3 people! You are a very efficient worker.

I tend to over filter my aquariums with lots of bio-media. When I was trying to figure this all out, I tested the main tank and it didn't show even a trace of ammonia, so I know my media keeps up with it, and even the Q tank I had setup that day, once I gave it time to rid itself of the ammonia instead of dumping more in, it kept up fine too, but it had a pretty light fish bio-load. My holding tank though, without the bacteria, it just didn't stand a chance. If I would have had an actual filter with media on it, it would have cycled itself without me even realizing it, (talk about an easy fishless cycle!) but all I had in there was something big enough to cause a bit of circulation for the heater.

I'll try to live up to your expectations with regard to this testing.

I have my only test kit at work, so I'll either get another one for home, or take the work one home from time to time to do the testing.

I'm a fan of undergravel filters, and I, too, like overkill on the filtration.

The tank at work has an undergravel system as well as the two internal HOBs that the aquarium kit came with. It all seems to be working great. I just did a test tonight, and it reads zero ammonia, zero nitrites, and (sorry to say) about 40-80 for nitrates. But then everyone feeds our crayfish a LOT. They're total pigs and they come out and beg, and will eat just about anything. It's far past due for a big water change (I may do that tomorrow) It's been about two weeks. I was on vacation for quite a bit of the time, and wasn't around - that's my excuse.

I use the scoopable kitty litter, and try to scoop the big box at least once per day. I just put it into an empty kitty litter bucket that sits inside the bathtub, filling the only bit of space that isn't occupied by the big litter box. It's still not my favorite chore, but it's gotta be done. But one point about this is that the scoopings sit in that bucket, with a not-terribly-tight lid, so some of the ammonia gassing off of THAT is in the room, too. And man, you can smell the ammonia when you open that bucket! I dump those buckets when they're topped off. And the ammonia is absolutely eye-burning when you take the lid off. So I've got a ready supply of ammonia around the house!

One note that might be interesting, even if unrelated to the whole ammonia absorption testing, is one reason why I built the kitty-box fume-hood.

I'd been suffering from some undiagnosable problems with the corneas of my eyes. I'd get whitish areas in the corneas that hurt like the dickens! I went to two eye doctors. One, my regular eye doc, and then also to a very good ophthalmologist here. Neither of them could actually nail down what was causing this problem.

It was thought by both of them, that it might just be an autoimmune issue where my body was attacking my own cornea tissue. One thing that really worked well for quelling these episodes was an eye drop solution that has two antibiotics and a steroid. The steroid nips the inflammation in the bud, and both of the doctors felt that this was what really made it work.

There are fungi, bacteria, and viruses that can all cause this kind of symptom, as well as the autoimmune thing.

But I had a suspicion that it might be related to scooping the cat litter. It could simply be irritation from the dust, or it might be fungus (mold grows on the waste quickly in the bucket), or a bacteria, or even a virus or parasite that might be in the cat litter. Regardless, I decided to set things up so I wouldn't be exposing my eyes to (or breathing) any more of this dust than I absolutely had to.

After building the cat-box fume-hood, I stopped having these episodes of cornea deterioration. Could be coincidence, could be that the root problem was found. I will probably never know. But I have to say that it really really hurt, so I don't miss it one bit!

 

Cat litter can be a bad thing, so it very well could have been the issue. Lets hope it doesn't come back. You need your eyes. You only grow two.

I'm certainly getting more and more curious about what your test results will be like, especially in that room, but it will actually be equally as interesting to compare it to one in a different area of the house too.

You know... I love cats, and I know the construction and cleaning products and everything played a part in this, and the fact my house is a lot more sealed and maybe I'll need to drill a hole through the wall for some air exchange, but I've found all of this very disturbing. I never considered the possibility of ammonia in the air contaminating my cat's water, or making my RO water unusable for the fish, (unless I did tiny water changes, and that just ain't gonna happen) etc. It just all blows my mind. I keep thinking that there is no way ammonia would contaminate a glass of water just sitting there. Somebody would have to do something to make it happen. Strange huh. even though I've seen it myself, and tested every way I could think of. I just keep expecting somebody to come along and tell me, nope, ammonia in the air wouldn't just show up in water.

 

I think most everything in the air will show up in the water, it only makes sense. I've always been careful about sealing the aquarium up if I'm painting in the room and then airing the room out. Also careful about airing the room out after using cleaning products. We have no cats so we don't have to worry about that.

 

I remember reading, many many years ago, that just spraying some window cleaner with ammonia in the same room where you have an aquarium can kill the fish if the fine droplets drift into the tank. And since people are often tempted to actually clean their aquarium glass using something like Windex that has a lot of ammonia in it, the potential for having this happen is surprisingly high.

At the very least, I'd want to just put the Window cleaner on a rag and then bring that to the aquarium. But since reading that, I've just avoided ammonia-bearing window cleaners when cleaning aquarium glass.

I also remember reading that it was a good idea to put an activated carbon pre-filter between your air pump and your air stones, etc., so that crud out of the air doesn't get pumped into your aquarium air supply. I built a filter like that and used it on an aquarium I had years ago. It also acted as a "muffler", damping out the air pulsations from the pump before they got into the tubing and the tank, and this actually quieted the room down noticeably because those pulsations transmit through the water to the sides of the tank, causing them to vibrate like drum heads.

I also wonder if this might not be better for the fish, too. After all, if you can hear the pulsations from an air pump coming off of your aquarium, imagine how loud it must be for the critters inside the tank!

 

I think most everything in the air will show up in the water, it only makes sense. I've always been careful about sealing the aquarium up if I'm painting in the room and then airing the room out. Also careful about airing the room out after using cleaning products. We have no cats so we don't have to worry about that.

That makes sense. And yeah, I've always protected my tank too, but I guess I thought of it more like I was protecting it from mists and pledge furniture wax particles and things like that. I guess I just never gave gasses any thought at all. Sometimes, I'm just not all that smart.

I also expected to be able to find it on the internet somewhere,...you know.... "If you want to test for the presence of ammonia in the air, place a container of water out and test it" kind of info. Maybe they think that not being able to determine the amount of ammonia in the air in this manner makes it worthless because it's just a test for the presence of.

 

One important thing to do when do anything major with chemicals in the room is to make sure you don't have an air pump running in the tank. Also I don't normally use carbon but if I've painted or used major chemicals I put carbon in the tank for about a week to help take care of any thing being transferred into the water.

 

I remember reading, many many years ago, that just spraying some window cleaner with ammonia in the same room where you have an aquarium can kill the fish if the fine droplets drift into the tank. And since people are often tempted to actually clean their aquarium glass using something like Windex that has a lot of ammonia in it, the potential for having this happen is surprisingly high.

At the very least, I'd want to just put the Window cleaner on a rag and then bring that to the aquarium. But since reading that, I've just avoided ammonia-bearing window cleaners when cleaning aquarium glass.

I also remember reading that it was a good idea to put an activated carbon pre-filter between your air pump and your air stones, etc., so that crud out of the air doesn't get pumped into your aquarium air supply. I built a filter like that and used it on an aquarium I had years ago. It also acted as a "muffler", damping out the air pulsations from the pump before they got into the tubing and the tank, and this actually quieted the room down noticeably because those pulsations transmit through the water to the sides of the tank, causing them to vibrate like drum heads.

I also wonder if this might not be better for the fish, too. After all, if you can hear the pulsations from an air pump coming off of your aquarium, imagine how loud it must be for the critters inside the tank!

Ha Ha Ha Ha... I covered my open top tank after all of this, because I read humidity can increase the release of ammonia into the air, and because the house is extra closed up over winter, more ammonia in the air isn't something I wanted to happen. I also figured it would help keep more ammonia out of the tank, so it might be a win win. Never thought of the air pump. Because my media can handle it, it doesn't much matter for me, but there might be those that it could make a difference to,

I'm glad you brought that up.

One important thing to do when do anything major with chemicals in the room is to make sure you don't have an air pump running in the tank. Also I don't normally use carbon but if I've painted or used major chemicals I put carbon in the tank for about a week to help take care of any thing being transferred into the water.

Another very good point. For some reason your like button is missing. I was going to give you one, but I'll have to do it when it comes back.

 

That makes sense. And yeah, I've always protected my tank too, but I guess I thought of it more like I was protecting it from mists and pledge furniture wax particles and things like that. I guess I just never gave gasses any thought at all. Sometimes, I'm just not all that smart.

I also expected to be able to find it on the internet somewhere,...you know.... "If you want to test for the presence of ammonia in the air, place a container of water out and test it" kind of info. Maybe they think that not being able to determine the amount of ammonia in the air in this manner makes it worthless because it's just a test for the presence of.

I suppose there are variables doing air testing this way that would be hard to correct for. The concentration of (ammonia in this case) in the water might not give a true picture of the ammonia levels in the air, but it might still be somewhat useful.

An example of a test that is done somewhat like this is radon testing. A canister of activated carbon is delivered to the customer sealed with tape. The customer takes off the tape, opens the can, and places it in the area to be tested. After a preset time (24 or 48 hours) the customer puts the lid back on, and re-seals it with the tape. The can is then returned to the laboratory.

The can is then placed into a gamma-spec system and the number of gamma-rays detected, and falling within a certain range of energies, is counted for a set time (an hour, commonly). Calculations to account for decay time and build-up of the gamma-emitting daughters are performed, and a reasonable estimate of the radon concentration in the air where the can was "deployed" is computed.

So this kind of thing is done. But the thing that makes it reasonably accurate in this case is that the activated carbon will "hold onto" the radon daughters very fiercely. So the decay-corrected count results will be proportional to the radon concentration that was present over the "can open" period. With water and ammonia, there is likely to be some transfer out of the water as well as into the water. I'm not sure what all of the variables might be, but it may turn out to be quite hard to account and correct for.

Ha Ha Ha Ha... I covered my open top tank after all of this, because I read humidity can increase the release of ammonia into the air, and because the house is extra closed up over winter, more ammonia in the air isn't something I wanted to happen. I also figured it would help keep more ammonia out of the tank, so it might be a win win. Never thought of the air pump. Because my media can handle it, it doesn't much matter for me, but there might be those that it could make a difference to,

I'm glad you brought that up.

Yeah, if your BB is munching the ammonia well, a bit of it getting into the tank over a period of time shouldn't be any different or worse than what's coming out of the fish or rotting food, etc. That's a good point.

It's really more of a problem if it's building up to unacceptable levels in someone's water-change water so that they end up dosing the poor fish with a big batch of it all at once when doing a water change. I can see how having that happen would be very surprising and disappointing to someone! Which is, I guess, the whole point of this thread!

 

Tagged

 

What keeps going through my mind when I see this thread is ... good reason not to do "too much" cleaning in the rooms where aquariums are. Now only if my husband would agree to it, haha.

 

Do you still want results @tootsie?

#1. Do you have cats? 1 cat

#2. Does your household use a lot of ammonia based cleaners? No

#3. Do you know if your water is treated with chloramine? NYC does not treat water with chloramine

Result day 1 = 0 ammonia
Sample of tap water placed in small dish of water, treated with 1 drop of Aqueon conditioner. Stirred and tested with API tk after 5mins.

 

I suppose there are variables doing air testing this way that would be hard to correct for. The concentration of (ammonia in this case) in the water might not give a true picture of the ammonia levels in the air, but it might still be somewhat useful.

An example of a test that is done somewhat like this is radon testing. A canister of activated carbon is delivered to the customer sealed with tape. The customer takes off the tape, opens the can, and places it in the area to be tested. After a preset time (24 or 48 hours) the customer puts the lid back on, and re-seals it with the tape. The can is then returned to the laboratory.

The can is then placed into a gamma-spec system and the number of gamma-rays detected, and falling within a certain range of energies, is counted for a set time (an hour, commonly). Calculations to account for decay time and build-up of the gamma-emitting daughters are performed, and a reasonable estimate of the radon concentration in the air where the can was "deployed" is computed.

So this kind of thing is done. But the thing that makes it reasonably accurate in this case is that the activated carbon will "hold onto" the radon daughters very fiercely. So the decay-corrected count results will be proportional to the radon concentration that was present over the "can open" period. With water and ammonia, there is likely to be some transfer out of the water as well as into the water. I'm not sure what all of the variables might be, but it may turn out to be quite hard to account and correct for.

Thanks for this info. Pretty interesting!

Yeah, if your BB is munching the ammonia well, a bit of it getting into the tank over a period of time shouldn't be any different or worse than what's coming out of the fish or rotting food, etc. That's a good point.

It's really more of a problem if it's building up to unacceptable levels in someone's water-change water so that they end up dosing the poor fish with a big batch of it all at once when doing a water change. I can see how having that happen would be very surprising and disappointing to someone! Which is, I guess, the whole point of this thread!

It's one of the points to the thread. Like I've said previously, it doesn't appear to happen if there is a lid on the holding container, even a loose fitting lid. Not to the point of ammonia building up enough to be tested over a 1 to 2 week period anyhow, but if a holding tank is used and isn't covered well due to plumbing equipment and electrical cords etc, (plus my lid was held up a bit by 2 end pieces of glass on this homemade 65 gallon fish tank) and water is used from it, but not actually completely emptying it, (which allows for accumulation over a larger amount of time) then this sort of thing has the potential to happen. This is also an RO holding tank, so it takes time to refill it. I allow RO water to trickle into this tank as the water is produced, so the "air" in the tank is slowly replaced by water, so that also adds to the contamination process.

One of the other points of making this thread is, if a person isn't over filtered and has this issue with air quality, then potentially their filtration system may not be able to house enough beneficial bacteria, so it may not be strong enough to maintain the full added bio-load this situation can create. It would be like having an AquaClear 20 with a gph of 100, on a 20 gallon tank. That filter might (might) be able to handle the stock of that 20 gallon tank, but lets say now that you really need for it to hand the load for stock of a 40 gallon tank. Chances are the media in this filter isn't going to provide the area that much BB would require.

Of course the actual added bio-load will be different from house to house, if one is added at all, but I see the potential for this type of situation causing people to not be able to totally eliminate the level of ammonia from their water.

To those that are starting from scratch setting up a new aquarium, this may affect them as well, either with a fish-in cycle, or a fishless cycle. They may actually be adding much more ammonia to their water than they realize. This could slow down the length of time it takes to cycle the aquarium.

Another reason that prompted me to share this all with you fishlorians, is upon coming back to the site, (initially just for a short visit. ) I came across threads wanting water samples to be aged before being tested for the nitrogen products. This situation I have encountered would lead people to think they have ammonia in their water source. It could also make them think their water is being treated with chloramine, which doesn't test positive for ammonia until it has been separated into its chlorine and ammonia products. Neither of these things might not always be the case.

I just think it is important for people to understand their source or sources of their ammonia. It's much easier to deal with it, if you know where it is coming from. For instance... If you think because you've aired your sample of water for 24 hours, and discovered you have ammonia, and say it's 1ppm for concentration, then you may also assume that you can't use your water for fish tanks! What if it's NOT your water's fault? You're buying and looking for other sources of water for fish tank use, and likely some worry goes along with it, but if it isn't your water's fault, you are stressing yourself over the wrong thing.

What keeps going through my mind when I see this thread is ... good reason not to do "too much" cleaning in the rooms where aquariums are. Now only if my husband would agree to it, haha.

I can tell you are a sly one.

Do you still want results @tootsie?

#1. Do you have cats? 1 cat

#2. Does your household use a lot of ammonia based cleaners? No

#3. Do you know if your water is treated with chloramine? NYC does not treat water with chloramine

Result day 1 = 0 ammonia
Sample of tap water placed in small dish of water, treated with 1 drop of Aqueon conditioner. Stirred and tested with API tk after 5mins.

Yes I definitely want results. The more the merrier! If this is happening in my home, there is a chance it is happening in yours. I want you to know if this maybe a source of ammonia for you, and I want others to do the same. I want the results shared because I don't want people, myself included, to feel alone if this is discovered. For people that may search this out sometime in the future if they happen to fluke across it (like I did) then maybe they will find this data helpful as well. I would really like to see everybody here do this truthfully, especially if you've encountered any of the above reasons for me making this thread.

Thank you for your participation! Keep us posted.

 

Do you still want results @tootsie?

#1. Do you have cats? 1 cat

#2. Does your household use a lot of ammonia based cleaners? No

#3. Do you know if your water is treated with chloramine? NYC does not treat water with chloramine

Result day 1 = 0 ammonia
Sample of tap water placed in small dish of water, treated with 1 drop of Aqueon conditioner. Stirred and tested with API tk after 5mins.

Results
Day 2 = 0 ammonia
Day 3 = 0 ammonia

 

Thank you Chunk101. You have very pretty test results. I very much appreciate your testing efforts!

 

No prob. Happy to participate!

 

I finally got a separate ammonia test kit for home and have performed some of the test steps, but not all. The next thing I needed was some of the most basic of dechlorinator, so I got some sodium thiosulfate, but that only arrived a few days ago, and I haven't had a chance to use that.

So I'll probably start this all over again, but just to see what I'd get with what I had on hand, I have been testing two samples at home. One is distilled water and the other just our tap water.

Our tap water has chloramines as the secondary disinfectant.

#1. Do you have cats? Yes. Four of them.

#2. Does your household use a lot of ammonia based cleaners? No. Almost never.

#3. Do you know if your water is treated with chloramine? Yes.


So far, the results for tap and distilled water, neither treated with dechlorinator have been:

Tested fairly soon after dispensing the samples:

Jan 21: Tap Water 0.5 to 1.0 ppm.
Distilled Water 0 ppm.

I have these samples in glass beakers, filled to 250 ml. So the surface area to volume ratio isn't as good as a bowl or saucer, but is not as bad as a drinking glass. At the water level used, the diameter is larger than the depth of the water for whatever that's worth.

I place the beakers in the room with the communal cat box. But we have forced air heating, and the house is not particularly well sealed and we have a lot of wind here. So the levels in that room may not really be significantly higher than the rest of the house, and the house itself isn't probably as high as you might imagine given the presence of the four cats. Further, the kitty litter I've been using during this time is claimed to contain some activated carbon, so it probably tries to snarf up some of the ammonia anyhow.

About 24 hours later, we have:

Jan 22: Tap Water 0.5 to 1.0 ppm.
Distilled Water 0 to 0.25 ppm.

So the distilled water seems to have picked up some ammonia in that day of sitting out.

The next test was on the 25th:

Jan 25: Tap Water 0.25 to 0.5 ppm.
Distilled Water still a bit less than 0.25 ppm, but I'd say closer to 0.25 now.

So the tap water seems to have lost some ammonia while the distilled seems to have gained a tiny bit or stayed about the same. It's hard to read the colors that closely.

So I think what may be happening here is that the water heads toward an equilibrium with the concentration of ammonia in the air around it, and then likely just stays at that level.

In my case, the tap water started off with ammonia from the chloramines while the distilled water started out with no ammonia. And now the two are heading toward the same level.

That's really pretty speculative given the small numbers of samples I've run and the lack of controls of any sort, but it seems like a reasonable explanation.

Once I get a solution of the sodium thiosulfate prepared, or just drop by Wally World and get some of the good old "de chlor" if they still sell that stuff, I'll see about trying some samples where I hit the tap water with the de chlor to begin with. I can also try it all at work where we don't have any cats.

We could also set something up in a cabinet with an open dish of some kind of ammonia to see how much ammonia some water might absorb in that case, then remove the ammonia and see if the water then loses that ammonia. That might confirm that water sitting open tends to just maintain a level of ammonia that mirrors the air ammonia levels over the preceding (fill in the blank) number of hours.

In any case, so far it looks like there's good evidence that water that starts off with zero ammonia does pick some up when sitting around open in someone's house where they've got a cat box. It seems reasonable that the same would happen if the household used ammonia products, too.

I'm pretty well surrounded by our four ammonia producers as I type this.

 

Interesting results. I like the idea of placing ammonia in a cupboard with a separate container of water to see the effects on the water.

I think I'll run a couple of tests here again myself.

Thank Jsigmo!