Ammonia Hydroxide

magnetar68

magnetar68

Member
I was thinking about adding 1 ppm of Ammonia Hydroxide to see if my nitrosyfying bacteria are up to snuff (NH3-->NO2).

The hardware store sells a dilute solution of 10%. I have about 30 gals of water in my 34g tank (the rest of the volume is rock and sand).

For fun, I was trying to calculate how many ml of this 10% solution I need. It has been 20 years since I took chemistry, so I don't think I did this right, but here's what I did:

  • 30 gals of H2O = 113.56 L of H2O
  • There are 1000g/L in water, so this is 113560 grams of water in my 30 gals
  • The molecular weight of water is 18.01528 g/mol, so that's 6303.85 mols in 30 gals of water.
  • 1 ppm of NH3 would be on million less mols, or 0.0063 mols of NH3
  • With a molecular weight of 35.05 g/mol for Ammonia Hydroxide, then I need 0.22095 grams of ammonia hydroxide (0.0063*35.05)
  • The density of a fully saturated solution of ammonia hydroxide is 0.88 g/ml (at 59 degrees F), so I would need 0.25 ml of this solution to get 0.221 grams (0.221/0.88).
  • With a 10% solution, I would need 10 times that amount, or 2.5 ml (50 metric drops).

That seems reasonable, but I have zero confidence I did that correctly.
 
magnetar68

magnetar68

Member
A friend of mine is a Phd in chemistry, so he helped me out. ppm is by weight, not my molecules, so the calculation is much different:

  • A 10% solution (assuming w/v) is 10g of ammonia for every 0.1L of solution.
  • 1 ppm of ammonia is the same as 0.0001 g NH3/1000g solution.
  • Since we are using dilute solutions, we can assume a density of 1 for our salt water and ammonia solution (This is a fairly accurate approximation since saturated ammonium hydroxide is like 70% and that only knocks down the density to 0.88).
  • Since the tank is 113.5L, you multiply that by 0.0001 g to get 0.01135g of NH3. So we need to deliver 0.01355g of NH3 to the tank.
  • Now go back to the 10% soln. You have 10g per 100mL of solution. To figure out what volume is needed that contains 0.01355g you set up the ratio: 10g/100mL = 0.01355g/x mL
  • Solving for x gives you 0.1355 mL.
  • So you need to deliver 0.1355mL of your 10% soln to get a 1ppm conc of NH3 in your 113.5L tank.
This can best accomplish this using a disposable plastic 1 mL syringe. Or three 0.05 drops.
 
Boomer

Boomer

Reef Sanctuary's Mr. Wizard
Your chemist is in error :)

You are not dealing with Ammonia but Ammonium Hydroxide. A 10 % solution of Ammonium Hydroxide does not equal a 10 % solution of Ammonium but a 10% solution of Ammonium hydroxide.

Ammonium hydroxide, NH4OH = 35.04 g/mol

Ammonium = NH4 = 14.007 g + ( 1.0079 g x 4) = 18.0386 g / mol
Hydroxide = OH = 15.999g + 1.0079g = 17.0069 g / mol

35.04 MW or g / mol

18.0386 Ammonium / 35.04 MW = 51 %

So, ruffly, a 10 % as you gave it, A 10% solution (assuming w/v) is 10g of ammonia is only a 5 % solution of Ammonia. As that is 10 g of Ammonium hydroxide and not 10 g of Ammonium
 
magnetar68

magnetar68

Member
Boomer said:
Your chemist is in error :)
So, ruffly, a 10 % as you gave it, A 10% solution (assuming w/v) is 10g of ammonia is only a 5 % solution of Ammonia. As that is 10 g of Ammonium hydroxide and not 10 g of Ammonium
Click to expand...

Thanks Boomer.

So, trying to reduce this to the simple equation:
  • 1L of water is 1,000g, so 1ppm is 1,000/1,000,000=0.001g per 1L (I think this is wrong in other post where I had 0.0001g)
  • I have 113L of water, so I need 0.113g (113L*0.001g/L) of Ammonia (in the form NH4) to add 1ppm to 113L of water
  • A 10% solution by weight of Ammonia Hydroxide is ~5g of NH4 per 100ml (using your relative molecular weight calculation).
  • So I need to solve for 5g/100ml = 0.113g/Xml
  • X=2.26ml

So it takes 2.26ml of a 10% Ammonia Hydroxide solution to raise 113L of water by 1ppm NH4 by weight.

Is that right?
 
magnetar68

magnetar68

Member
OHreefer said:
Are you just doing this for fun? Or are there troubles with your system? Is it stocked with fish and corals?
Click to expand...

New tank. Nothing in it but rock and sand. I have read and seen others promote the idea of using a 1 ppm of ammonia to test the efficacy of the nitrosyfying bateria (NH3->NO2) once the tank appears cycled (0ppm NH3 and NO2). They mentioned online calculators for dosing, but I wanted to understand the math. Not sure I am actually going to do, but I wanted to understand the dosing calculation.
 
cbrownfish

cbrownfish

Well-Known Member
Let's simplify. The average human urinates at a rate of 20 ml's per second. I am thinking that you can hit your number in about a second and a half! :D
 
D

DaveK

Well-Known Member
magnetar68 said:
New tank. Nothing in it but rock and sand. I have read and seen others promote the idea of using a 1 ppm of ammonia to test the efficacy of the nitrosyfying bateria (NH3->NO2) once the tank appears cycled (0ppm NH3 and NO2). They mentioned online calculators for dosing, but I wanted to understand the math. Not sure I am actually going to do, but I wanted to understand the dosing calculation.
Click to expand...

It's fine to understand the dosing. However, I don't recommend actually doing it in a new tank. Your going to know it can handle any ammonia simply by seeing it go through it's cycle.

Why mess around with something that if done incorrectly can result in a major disaster?
 
magnetar68

magnetar68

Member
DaveK said:
It's fine to understand the dosing. However, I don't recommend actually doing it in a new tank.

Why mess around with something that if done incorrectly can result in a major disaster?
Click to expand...

As is usually the case in this hobby there are plenty of people that swear by it and plenty of people that caution against it. My own opinion is that if you do your homework and are certain of your math, then adding a few drops of a 10% ammonia solution is no different than any other chemical additives to the tank. Ammonia is a something that will be added to the tank by its livestock, so the primary issue is that quantity of NH3 that could get you in trouble. I also appreciate your opinion and I agree with you that extreme caution is warranted because doing the homework properly is a big IF. I have had to recruit Boomer and a PhD in chemistry to make sure I got this right :).

DaveK said:
Your going to know it can handle any ammonia simply by seeing it go through it's cycle.
Click to expand...

It is my understanding from several sources that you can have a tank go through it's cycle to 0 NH3 and 0 NO2, but not respond appropriately to NH3 added to the tank because the nitrosyfying bacteria colony is not sufficiently large enough or has been displaced by other less beneficial bacteria (e.g., cyanobacteria). The whole point of this test is to accurately measure the NH3 load that the tank can handle.
 
magnetar68

magnetar68

Member
Sorry to keep updating this, but since I asked the question, I want to make sure the information is correct. I should have been more clear in my original post, but the 10% solution from ACE hardware is a liquid solution, so it does in fact contain 10% NH3 by weight. Boomer's correction in a previous post does not apply in this case. So here's the correct math:
  • 1L of water is 1,000g, so 1ppm is 1,000/1,000,000=0.001g per 1L
  • I have 113L of water, so I need 0.113g (113L*0.001g/L) of Ammonia (in the form NH3) to add 1ppm to 113L of water
  • A 10% solution by weight of Ammonia is ~10g of NH3 per 100ml
  • So I need to solve for 10g/100ml = 0.113g/Xml
  • X=1.13ml

This is 0.23 teaspoons, so roughly 1/4 teaspoon of a 10% NH3 solution by weight will raise 30gals by ~1ppm.
 
D

DaveK

Well-Known Member
magnetar68 said:
As is usually the case in this hobby there are plenty of people that swear by it and plenty of people that caution against it. My own opinion is that if you do your homework and are certain of your math, then adding a few drops of a 10% ammonia solution is no different than any other chemical additives to the tank. ...
Click to expand...

This is correct ...

But let me ask one additional question ...

Are you willing to put your entire reef's livestock, which you spent a lot of money and time on, at risk to test this?

If you look at things from that point of view, it will stop you from doing a lot of questionable things with your reef system.
 
magnetar68

magnetar68

Member
DaveK said:
This is correct ...

But let me ask one additional question ...

Are you willing to put your entire reef's livestock, which you spent a lot of money and time on, at risk to test this?
Click to expand...

Absolutely not. That's why no one should ever do this in a tank that had anything in it other than bacteria. I also think 1 ppm is probably too high of a test. I got the SeaChem Ammionia Alert the other day is has toxic at 0.5ppm. That means a good test for 30g of water would be closer to 0.5ml which is 10 drops of 10% ammonia solution. If the ammonia does not come down, you won't be able to stock it so you don't risk any livestock, but you will need to continue to add SeaChem Stability of other bacterial starter until it does.
 
Boomer

Boomer

Reef Sanctuary's Mr. Wizard
Raymo

No, there is nothing wrong with doing it this way. In the olden days this method was very common. One of the reasons is one could create a very large population density of nitrifying bacteria. We would actually dose the system even higher that 1 ppm and dose it 2-3 times, each time waiting for the Ammonia to reach ~ zero. Many years ago in FAMA there was a comprehensive article on this procedure.
 
Octoman

Octoman

Well-Known Member
Boomer, what would be the advantages/disadvantages of using Ammonium hydroxide vs. using Ammonium chloride?
 
Bobi1956

Bobi1956

Active Member
Excuse my jumping in but I am currently using this method using Dr. Tim's nitrifying bacteria and ammonium chloride reagent - here is the link -
fishless

I used Key largo dry rock and utilized this method because I didn't want the risk of some of the hitchhikers commonly associated with "live rock" - my tank cycled in 10 days. Using this method you used one drop of the ammonium chloride reagent per gallon of water to obtain an ammonia level of 2 mg/l. Your welcome to look at my link

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/red-sea-max-owners-club/55539-rsm-250-started-2-12-10-a.html
 
Boomer

Boomer

Reef Sanctuary's Mr. Wizard
Mark

The accumulation of more unwanted Chloride ions, which help nothing vs the gain of OH- in the other

NH4OH===> NH3/NH4+ + + OH-

OH - + CO2 ==> HCO3- = buffer like kalk = better pH
 
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