Experiment - Removing Ammonia from Tap Water

[IrnGynt]

Probably nitpicking, but I was trying to devise a way to actually remove the ammonia from my tap water (between .50 and 1.0 ppm) before putting it in my tank. I came up with a container made out of an old vegetable oil bottle with holes drilled into the bottom. I filled this with 3/4 ammonia chips (2 or 3 cups) and 1/4 activated carbon. Hooked this up to a 600 gph pump and placed it in a 20 gal plastic container. Filled it up with tap water and let it run for 4 hours.

Maybe a slight change in ammonia content but not what I was hoping for which was total removal. Maybe I'll try it again and let it run all night.

I was expecting total removal within 20 minutes or so. I guess I was too optimistic on the ammo chips.

Sorry for the very unscientific method, but I was multitasking at the time.

 

[brianp]

I applaud your creative attempt to deal with this issue. However, are you sure it's "ammonia"? Chloramines can generate false positives with ammonia test kits. If it is ammonia (and it could be)...most of us would just treat the municipal water with Prime and deactivate it until our biomedia can process it.

 

[kallmond]

If I recall from chemistry 15 years ago ammonia evaporates at a lower temperature than water, so couldn't you boil it off?

 

[Mr Pleco]

I store water in seperate 150 gal rubbermaid containers for water changes.
Hooked up a whole house carbon filter just for the aquarium water source. then I use PRIME and the stored water is then heated and filtered with PURIGEN and Fluval phosphate media for 24 hours before placing in the display tanks. Cheaper than RO when you factor in the cost of waste water.

As mentioned before watch for false readings with your test kit

 

[IrnGynt]

Didn't know about the false readings. I figured the Prime chemically eliminated the chlorine leaving only ammonia which in turn is converted to ammonium.

I tested after treatment with Prime and still get the same ammonia readings.

My thought process was if I can easily and cheaply (and quickly) remove the ammonia before putting it into the tank, I won't have to worry about the extra Nitrates created by the in-tank bio process.

 

[brianp]

Didn't know about the false readings. I figured the Prime chemically eliminated the chlorine leaving only ammonia which in turn is converted to ammonium.

I tested after treatment with Prime and still get the same ammonia readings.

My thought process was if I can easily and cheaply (and quickly) remove the ammonia before putting it into the tank, I won't have to worry about the extra Nitrates created by the in-tank bio process.

An exta 1 ppm of nitrate (per unit volume) is irrelevant. Make life easy for yourself...just dechlorinate with Prime and forget about it.

 

[IrnGynt]

An exta 1 ppm of nitrate (per unit volume) is irrelevant. Make life easy for yourself...just dechlorinate with Prime and forget about it.

I think I'll take that advice! As I was messing with this for a couple of hours yesterday I couldn't help but ask myself was all this really worth it.

Now what do I do with my non-working vegetable oil bottle ammonia remover??