Experiment - Dosing Ammonia

[Bilk]

blk,
He asked for opinions. I gave him mine. It was not a beat down, but you are entitled to your own opinions.................as I am entitled to mine.
Nopox is highly toxic as well, but if dosed correctly and slowly it has no effect on the animals. Dilution is key. He could even add his amount to a gallon of tank water, then add that slowly
It makes no sense to me to try to get zero phosphate readings. He's stripping the system of everything, then its a see/saw battle and alot of work.....

I don't see where he said he was looking to get a zero reading of PO4. Care to point that out? Your post looked like a rant that was chastising the OP. Sorry that's how it reads.

The OP looks like he has some success in reef keeping. He posted a pic of his tank. It doesn't look like he is lost. It seems as if he's seeking to improve upon what he's already done and he's doing it responsibly. He's also here to discuss that. You made it seem as if he's committing petacide. He has reservations and expressed them.

This is just the reason many people don't post. They fear being ridiculed for either asking questions or sharing some methods they're attempting.

 

[neoyhng]

neo,
I have to call you on this one. The poisoning I am referring to is indeed ammonia. When a fish is shipped in half a cup of even 1 cup of water they are poisoned by their own waste. Which is ammonia. This destroys their internal organs, or damages them beyond the animals capability to heal themselves. They then get secondary infections which finish them off!
The 1/6400 is as you can see detrimental to your fish. Evidenced by stressing them out! If your going to try and manipulate the system in this way, at least do it very slowing. A slow metered drip would be the safest.
Why rush it? Why not let the system balance out by itself. It will eventually if you have patience. If the parameters are not correct, it's not ready.
Your telling me free phosphate in the system has no effect on corals and fish????? Well then why do high phosphate levels impede coral growth?
I have stripped nitrates and phosphates down to zero years ago multiple times. And let me tell you, its a real PITA to find a balance after that. Usually consistent feeding throughout the day and shutting skimmers off for sometimes half the day.
So the live rock was not dead? Was it dried out at all? You claimed a huge failure 2 years ago. Then you just recently set up a new tank. So where was the rock for 2 years?? In a holding tank? Dried out part of the time?
Im just trying to understand what you are saying. I just hope you do not start a big fat round of Ich in your tank and kill alot of the fish is all.
A Parrot fish will eat your coral my friend. They are coral eaters as well as algae. As far as I know, rock has very little protein and nutrients. They may use the crushed coral to aid in digestion and teeth maintenance.
I think your tank looks good right now! Build on it slowly. I really like NoPox from RedSea. The product works excellent and is very affordable. It too is highly recommended to does the measured amounts throughout the day.

May be my English is too poor and I cannot explain clearly enough.

My tank crashed two years ago and I restarted it right after it crashed. The rock never dried...I just took them out to clean the surface algae and red slim (with salt water) and they go right back. The tank you see right now is already two years old.

What I was saying is that any phosphate that is free in the water and testable indicates something is not running well, and I am trying to rectify. I was not saying it is harmless. Dosing ammonia may not be the best or a safe way, but other methods I tried were either not working well, or too expensive to run in the long term. I post this as I want to share.

I actually considered NoPox, and inspected a sample available from a LFS which I am familiar. Although I didn't really tested what it is, the smell of it remind me of Acetone....not much better than ammonia. Period.

 

[meshwheel]

bilk,

Please tell me what this says. Third paragraph down on his opening post:

6 months after restart I started to battle with the phosphates. Various methods had been employed, including biopellets, VSV dosing, GFO, ATS, they all works somehow, but once the phosphate level reached 0.1ppm it refused to go down further, no matters how I “twisted” the dosing and how much I increase the amount of GFO used, the o.1ppm remained the same. During the period I added more and more corals and fishes, and other than the colour of the coral, everything seemed fine; corals were growing and fishes were healthy and eating well. I even added a melon butterfly (kind of crazy…) to the tank as I though the growth of my coral could substantiate it dietary need. Fortunately I was right and the melon butterfly is still here (over 9 months) and getting really fat without any severe damages done to the corals.
So, this is what I was referring to. I did NOT TRY AND CHASTISE HIM. He sounded frustrated to me. I have been in the same boat. So i tried to be very direct and clear.
I wish him success with the tank of course. He just does not have to fight it so hard!

 

[meshwheel]

Neo,
AHAAA! I understand now! Thank you for clarifying. I get your points now. The nopox is actually Methanol and Acetic acid. And it works beautifully.
I just set up a tank with 50% dead/dried out rock and 50% cured live rock. In one week dosing, nitrates where 0.25 and phosphates 0.08. Now in 2 weeks I am 0 nitrates and 0.02 phosphates. I purchased the Red Sea phosphate/Nitrate test kit and both work excellent. I have now cut my maintenance dosage down to 2.0 mls per day. I am getting a slight reading now for nitrates and phosphates holding steady at 0.02.
Your tank looks very nice neo just how it is. I wish you good luck with it. The NoPox stresses to add slowly in a area with no animals. Avoid direct contact!
Maybe your too low on nutrients for coral colors???

 

[Bilk]

bilk,

Please tell me what this says. Third paragraph down on his opening post:

6 months after restart I started to battle with the phosphates. Various methods had been employed, including biopellets, VSV dosing, GFO, ATS, they all works somehow, but once the phosphate level reached 0.1ppm it refused to go down further, no matters how I "œtwisted" the dosing and how much I increase the amount of GFO used, the o.1ppm remained the same. During the period I added more and more corals and fishes, and other than the colour of the coral, everything seemed fine; corals were growing and fishes were healthy and eating well. I even added a melon butterfly (kind of crazy"¦) to the tank as I though the growth of my coral could substantiate it dietary need. Fortunately I was right and the melon butterfly is still here (over 9 months) and getting really fat without any severe damages done to the corals.
So, this is what I was referring to. I did NOT TRY AND CHASTISE HIM. He sounded frustrated to me. I have been in the same boat. So i tried to be very direct and clear.
I wish him success with the tank of course. He just does not have to fight it so hard!

It says .1ppm. Not .01ppm. A large magnitude of difference. Now we must question your knowledge about things. Many consider .1 too high for SPS.

 

[neoyhng]

Neo,
AHAAA! I understand now! Thank you for clarifying. I get your points now. The nopox is actually Methanol and Acetic acid. And it works beautifully.
I just set up a tank with 50% dead/dried out rock and 50% cured live rock. In one week dosing, nitrates where 0.25 and phosphates 0.08. Now in 2 weeks I am 0 nitrates and 0.02 phosphates. I purchased the Red Sea phosphate/Nitrate test kit and both work excellent. I have now cut my maintenance dosage down to 2.0 mls per day. I am getting a slight reading now for nitrates and phosphates holding steady at 0.02.
Your tank looks very nice neo just how it is. I wish you good luck with it. The NoPox stresses to add slowly in a area with no animals. Avoid direct contact!
Maybe your too low on nutrients for coral colors???

If NoPox is just Methanol and Acetic acid then it has no difference in principal to dosing VSV and biopellet, that is to say, adding carbon to facilitate growth of bacteria to lower Nitrate and Phosphate. The problem I have is an excess of phosphate ONLY, and carbon alone cannot cure it without the other major ingredient, nitrogen. This is why I am adding ammonia, a nitrogen source.

It says .1ppm. Not .01ppm. A large magnitude of difference. Now we must question your knowledge about things. Many consider .1 too high for SPS.

Thank for clarification for me. But I trust that all comments are kind in nature and be frank, what I am doing will likely be considered as an "unconventional medication" for desperate or reckless people only. I actually need to be very careful.

 

[meshwheel]

My mistake! Yes, that is too high. Phosphates always take long to drop out then the nitrates do. Good luck with it neo! i read it wrong. My fault!

 

[meshwheel]

That clarification was for me. I can take it!LOL. You want to be at 0.02. I know it takes time, and it did even with this tank I just set up. The nitrates dropped out quickly, and phosphates took longer.
I really liked the NoPox, as it's very economical. No need for additional reactors, pumps etc. It worked excellent, and just how they explained it would work!
Thanks for correcting me Bilk. Yep, i read it wrong!

 

[GroktheCube]

Interesting. I've heard of peopled dosing different forms of nitrate, but never ammonia.

It's definitely sound in theory, as long as you're careful, and the ammonia is adequately diluted. Trace amounts won't harm your fish.

A lot of people seem to have issues with N import/export imbalance. I know I have it to some degree, but it's rare for my P levels to get high enough to cause problems. I think many of the dried foods we feed have more than 1 part P for every 16 parts N, and I think many of us export N more heavily than P as well.

 

[neoyhng]

A lot of people seem to have issues with N import/export imbalance. I know I have it to some degree, but it's rare for my P levels to get high enough to cause problems. I think many of the dried foods we feed have more than 1 part P for every 16 parts N, and I think many of us export N more heavily than P as well.

Thank you for your comment. However, the general picture of C:N of 106:16:1 (the Redfield Ratio) was based on Alfred Clarence Redfield's research in 1934 and more recent studies have already shown that the ratio can vary greatly in different environment. A very enlightening paper on this subject can be found here

 

[dkeller_nc]

Thank you for your comment. However, the general picture of C:N of 106:16:1 (the Redfield Ratio) was based on Alfred Clarence Redfield's research in 1934 and more recent studies have already shown that the ratio can vary greatly in different environment. A very enlightening paper on this subject can be found here

That is indeed an interesting paper, though one aspect of it is that the Redfield ratio appears to have been bracketed by the researcher's experimentally obtained values for C, N and P limited bacteria.

But I'm curious about something in your original post - you noted that you couldn't achieve less than 0.1 ppm phosphate with GFO. That's in contrast with many reefer's experience, including mine. In fact, I have to be careful that my P concentration doesn't go to zero right after I change the GFO. So, may I ask what kind/brand of GFO were you using, and how were you measuring the phosphate concentration of the tank water?

 

[neoyhng]

But I'm curious about something in your original post - you noted that you couldn't achieve less than 0.1 ppm phosphate with GFO. That's in contrast with many reefer's experience, including mine. In fact, I have to be careful that my P concentration doesn't go to zero right after I change the GFO. So, may I ask what kind/brand of GFO were you using, and how were you measuring the phosphate concentration of the tank water?

Thank you and I might have been misleading in my first post. GFO was actually the first method I employed for reducing PO4 and I had been using Phosban, Rowaphos and Phosguards (this is aluminum, not GFO), and all of them worked INITIALLY; they all able to reduce the PO4 level to less than 0.04ppm in the first few days but PO4 always bounced back in a week or so. Either the PO4 "pool" in my tank is so high or I fed too heavily that the material got saturated easily. Running PO4 absorbent continuously was too costly for me since they needed to be replace frequently and an alternatives PO4 control method must be found.

I hope I can make an update this Sat. There seems to be some encouraging signs, although something not-so-desirable also occurred.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Have you considered regenerating your GFO? Doing so makes it much more economical for me to use, because like you, I feed heavily, and phosphate levels will start to rise after a week or so of use.

 

[neoyhng]

Have you considered regenerating your GFO? Doing so makes it much more economical for me to use, because like you, I feed heavily, and phosphate levels will start to rise after a week or so of use.

I tried twice, and might be because I did it wrong, the results were not satisfactory and the renewed GFO only worked couple of days after the first try and didn't work at all after the second. The process is also tedious to me. I am not good at these kind of work.:headwallblue:

 

[dkeller_nc]

If you were following the Advanced Aquarist article on regenerating GFO, there are some simplifications that you might be interested in. The most important is that it isn't necessary to recirculate 1N NaOH through the media with a pump. All that's required is a mason jar to hold the media, and another bottle of 1N NaOH that you can make by dissolving lye in RODI.

In my case, I've found that submerging the GFO with twice its volume in 1N NaOH solution 4 times is sufficient to get the phosphate absorbing capacity back. One simply allows the GFO and NaOH solution to stand for 6-12 hours, pour it off, re-fill with NaOH and repeat 3 additional times. Then rinse the media with 0.01N HCl (about 4 times) to neutralize any remaining sodium hydroxide, dry it out in the oven, and you're good to go.

 

[_shorty_]

If you were following the Advanced Aquarist article on regenerating GFO, there are some simplifications that you might be interested in. The most important is that it isn't necessary to recirculate 1N NaOH through the media with a pump. All that's required is a mason jar to hold the media, and another bottle of 1N NaOH that you can make by dissolving lye in RODI.

In my case, I've found that submerging the GFO with twice its volume in 1N NaOH solution 4 times is sufficient to get the phosphate absorbing capacity back. One simply allows the GFO and NaOH solution to stand for 6-12 hours, pour it off, re-fill with NaOH and repeat 3 additional times. Then rinse the media with 0.01N HCl (about 4 times) to neutralize any remaining sodium hydroxide, dry it out in the oven, and you're good to go.

Thanks for those instructions. You use high capacity? I've read it stands up better to regeneration.

 

[neoyhng]

If you were following the Advanced Aquarist article on regenerating GFO, there are some simplifications that you might be interested in. The most important is that it isn't necessary to recirculate 1N NaOH through the media with a pump. All that's required is a mason jar to hold the media, and another bottle of 1N NaOH that you can make by dissolving lye in RODI.

In my case, I've found that submerging the GFO with twice its volume in 1N NaOH solution 4 times is sufficient to get the phosphate absorbing capacity back. One simply allows the GFO and NaOH solution to stand for 6-12 hours, pour it off, re-fill with NaOH and repeat 3 additional times. Then rinse the media with 0.01N HCl (about 4 times) to neutralize any remaining sodium hydroxide, dry it out in the oven, and you're good to go.

Thanks and the instruction is very helpful. But it seems you still need 2 to 3 days with 10 times the volume of corrosive liquids to the GFO to regenerate just a batch...Well, I don't think I hand handle that....

 

[neoyhng]

Update on 4 Jan 2014

Update on 4 Jan 2014

I promised an update and here it is.

It is the 7 weeks of my experiment and the dose was still 3ml 5% ammonia hydroxide twice every day. PO4 on average was 0.02ppm over the week and the test this morning read 0.01ppm. I must say, I achieved my primary goal:lolspin:.

There are also some noticeable changes in my tank parameters. Not all of them favorable. I am not sure they are good or bad, or the reasons behind, but they are worth reporting in my opinion:

• Both KH and Ca consumption increased and after ramping up my Ca reactor I now managed to maintain the level at 7-8 dkh and 430ppm, vs 8-9 dkh and 480ppm before the experiment.
• PH level is generally around 0.2 less than before the experiment
• Skimmer continues to work at incredible efficiency and now I have to empty the whole cup every day with tea colour liquid!
• Surprisingly, I found the filter socks last longer before clogging. I can leave them for 6-7 days before changing whereas I have to change them every 3-4 days before the experiment.
• Water clarity improved, but it seems the colour turned a tiny bit yellowish after the experiment.

As for the inhabitants, they also responded to the experiment and again, I am not sure these are good signs or bad signs...

• Coral continues to colour up, especially the red ones which are much more vibrant now;
• One of my arco seems to be changing colour; it was dark green beforehand and it seems to changing to yellow. It looks like a lemon slowly maturing on the tree. I still looks healthy though;
• More growing tips are observed generally;
• Red slim subsided (as opposed to the beginning of the experiment); and the few stubborn patches of bryopsis starts to recede;
• Some less than healthy coral branches die off, but the colony remains healthy and the "die off" did not spread;
• Vermetid snails are now a real headache. They used to make a few inch-long silk threads only but now some of them emit a ball of thread the size of a tennis ball. This irritate everything in the surrounding.
• When I shined my coral with black light in the night, the fluorescent observed has never been better;even the red coral shown some fluorescent which had never observed before;
• The deresa clam I have seems to expand it mantle less over it edge, but open up the shells more widely.
• One casualty finally. My red sea cucumber decided to take a walk OUTSIDE the tank and ended up dead on the floor. I have never heard of sea cucumber doing things like this and I can only assume that this has something to do with my experiment.
• Fishes seems to spend more time on grazing.
• Iches still appears on my Tangs, but they does not get more serious and the fishes appear unaffected. Keep my figures crossed.

At the moment I am happy with the results generally. I may reduce the dose and see if the PO4 can still be in check. Will report again.

 

[jimmcwibb]

I don't want to hijack the thread, but I never understood the claim that there's more phosphate in the water column but it cannot be measured because alga are utilizing faster than it can be read in a test. It's either in the water column or it's not. If the uptake is that quick, then the water column is relatively free of PO4 if tests do not display it in a meaningful reading. That's the way I see it.

The problem is that the test kit only gives you a single reading of the actual concentration of a substance in the water (which can sometimes be useful) but they do not give an indication of the flux of that substance through the system. The claim is not that there is more phosphate in the water column (like you say, it's either there or it isn't), but that the total amount of phosphate moving through the system (the flux) is higher than expected. Consider the following scenario. A tank is heavily fed daily, a skimmer or GFO is not used and little algae growth is observed. In that case you would expect the phosphate levels to be high because the input is high but the output (algae, skimmer, GFO) is low. This low output means the flux is low, so phosphate is allowed to build up. These might be conditions observed immediately before an algae bloom. Take the same system a week later and nothing is different except that there is now a large algae biomass because the high phosphate levels triggered a bloom. That algae is now drawing down all that phosphate. The test kit now reads low phosphate. But the tank is still fed heavily. The phosphate input is still high, but now the output is high too, so the flux is now high. Both of these systems have the same amount of phosphate going in, but one reads high phosphate and the other reads low phosphate.

If you looked only at the second system without any knowledge of the first, and tested the water for phosphate, and found it to be low, you might dismiss phosphate as the problem. That's because the reading is low but the concentration of phosphate in the water does not give you any idea what the flux of phosphate through the system is. However, the observation that algae growth is high indicates that the flux of nutrients through the system is also high.

 

[dkeller_nc]

Thanks and the instruction is very helpful. But it seems you still need 2 to 3 days with 10 times the volume of corrosive liquids to the GFO to regenerate just a batch...Well, I don't think I hand handle that....

Actually, regenerating GFO in this manner is remarkably easy and relatively safe. Not sure about Hong Kong, but in the US one makes sodium hydroxide solutions by purchasing lye sold as a drain cleaner. It's very cheap, and it doesn't fume when dissolved in water. One does need to wear some dishwashing-type gloves to keep the lye solution off of your hands, but other than that it's not hazardous.

Since it's drain cleaner and won't harm pipes, one simply pours off the lye solution into the sink and flushes it with a bit of water from the tap.

The 0.01N HCl solution isn't actually required, it's more of a convenience to get the remaining NaOH completely neutralized in the GFO before drying. But you can accomplish the same thing with vinegar, or just RODI water, though more rinses are required if you use just RODI.