Trace Ammonia

[nzafi]

So my ammonia alert turned the light green and I validated the ammonia with my api test and I am wondering the cause. My tank is a 180g that I just got stood up from a move. I was running a temporary 40g with my aimara in it. Before the move I had 3 running ac110s. I kept two running on the 40g and had all media in the tank so that once my 180g was up I could transfer all filter media. Based on that I would expect to have no issues.

The big new factor and I believe is the cause is my new drip system. I am dripping about 90gpd (need to reduce it) and I setup filters to handle chlorine and chloramine. I believe that when catalytic carbon gets rid of the chloramine there is ammonia created. Is this the cause? Will it take long for my filters to catch up?

I want to reduce the drip to about 48gpd but need to get a new emitter. Should I just leave the system running or should I take some sort of steps.

 

[tlindsey]

So my ammonia alert turned the light green and I validated the ammonia with my api test and I am wondering the cause. My tank is a 180g that I just got stood up from a move. I was running a temporary 40g with my aimara in it. Before the move I had 3 running ac110s. I kept two running on the 40g and had all media in the tank so that once my 180g was up I could transfer all filter media. Based on that I would expect to have no issues.

The big new factor and I believe is the cause is my new drip system. I am dripping about 90gpd (need to reduce it) and I setup filters to handle chlorine and chloramine. I believe that when catalytic carbon gets rid of the chloramine there is ammonia created. Is this the cause? Will it take long for my filters to catch up?

I want to reduce the drip to about 48gpd but need to get a new emitter. Should I just leave the system running or should I take some sort of steps.

duanes
Drstrangelove
S skjl47

 

[Drstrangelove]

http://www.redorbit.com/news/scienc...to_nitrogen_using_chlorination_and_activated/

As this article describes the process, the end result of catalyctic carbon and monochloramine will include some ammonia (and also small amounts of nitrate) under certain conditions.

"It is generally accepted (Bryant et al., 1992; U.S. EPA, 1986; Valentine et al., 1998) that the major products of monochloramine decomposition in water are ammonia, nitrogen gas, nitrate, and chloride, which are formed in the following reactions..."

Activated carbon is known to reduce the concentration of monochloroamine from 1 to 2 mg/L (1 to 2 ppm) to less than 0.1 mg/L (0.1 ppm). However, most of activated carbon beds remove chloramines generating ammonia (Bauer and Snoeyink, 1973; Komorita and Snoeyink, 1985), which cannot be removed by activated carbon.




Under ideal conditions, nitrosomonas bacteria should double in well under a day, so if you are finding trace amounts of ammonia, it should not take long for it to adapt to higher levels of ammonia. However, chloramine and chlorine are occasionally used in larger amounts at water processing plants. And there is nothing controlling the amount of chloramine that reaches your home. It likely varies due to several variables. In all those situations, I would imagine you might find trace amounts of ammonia.

 

[nzafi]

Ammonia doesn't seem to be coming down which is frustrating. I retested my autodrip today though and it was dripping much higher than expected. I calculated about 135g in 24 hours which is ridiculous. I guess I really shouldn't have trusted this emitters. I have dropped it to the lowest setting that is suppose to be 0 gallons but will actually drop 20g per day. I am hoping with the heavily reduced drip the ammonia issue will be resolved.