Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)
Hi,
John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.
I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.
With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.
I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.
If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.
I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.
I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.
Thank you
Darragh Sherwin
Ammonia toxicity question?
- gunnered72 (Eddy Gunnered)
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- anthonyd (Anthony Debesne)
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As i undetstand it the test mesures both ammonia NH3 and ammonium NH4+ in the water.
The lower the ph, the lower the concentration of NH3 so less toxicity for the fish.
But if your tank is properly cycled and you dont overfeed you shouldnt have ammonia reading.
Anthony
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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If your test kit measures total ammonia (ammonium and ammonia) then that reading will not really change over differing pH, but the ammonia proportion will change.
If, however, the test kit only measures ammonia (unionised) then the reading will change with changing pH.
The following article I did here has some brief explantion of the proportional changes in ammonia with changes in temperature and pH.
There is a downloadble XL spreadsheet with a calculator link within the article.
From that you can calculate the true ammonia value at a given pH and temperature; and you can use the spreadsheet to calculate the ammonia level if the temp and pH were to change.
www.irishfishkeepers.com/index.php/artic...water-and-illinesses
ian
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- Gonefishy (Brian oneill)
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- anthonyd (Anthony Debesne)
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Thanks
Anthony
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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Igmillichip, so will the amount of nitrite produced be the same in different water ph ?
Thanks
Anthony
That's a good question, and (as with so much in water chemistry) the answer is not always straighforward.
Nitrite is the salt of a weak acid (nitrous acid), as a salt of a weak acid it is a base....and can contribute to the pH itself.
Now, by comparison, ammonia is a weak base and ammonium is the salt of a weak base (ammonia). So, as a salt, ammonium is an acid.
As we know the ammonia/ammonium proportions are affected by pH, and so to is the nitrite/nitrous acid proportions somewhat affected by pH.
Remembering that both the ammonia/ammonium and the nitrite/nitrous acid systems can change and buffer the pH themselves.
Now, just because the pH may affect the nitrite concentration in the tankd does not necessarily mean that it affects the measurement of it as the test kit itself may change the relative proportions within the test tube.
So......if we wonder if a similar questions comes regarding nitrates then the answer is not the same as nitrates are the salts of a strong acid (nitric acid)....and there is no real buffering system with nitrates/nitric acid.
But....here be a warning, if the water has insufficient alkalinity then nitrification may make nitric acid without being able to convert it to the salt (nitrate).....and the concentration of the nitric acid can be so high that it can cause an acid crash.
ian
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- anthonyd (Anthony Debesne)
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I was asking this question after reading an article on how to keep wild altum angelfish and the writer was advising to cycle the tank to a neutral ph and them lower the ph gradually, as it was difficult to cycle a tank at a low ph, and i assume a really soft water, and then adding the livestock .
Anthony
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- gunnered72 (Eddy Gunnered)
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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Thanks for the explanation Ian.
I was asking this question after reading an article on how to keep wild altum angelfish and the writer was advising to cycle the tank to a neutral ph and them lower the ph gradually, as it was difficult to cycle a tank at a low ph, and i assume a really soft water, and then adding the livestock .
Anthony
Yes.
All too often Discus and Altum Angel keepers go in and use insufficiently buffered water at low pH from day one.
Higher pH (up to a limit) helps the nitrosofying and nitrifying bacteria colony grow. If the pH is lowered gradually then the losses in the colony will be minimised.
If the water is too soft then the nitric acid produced by nitrification remains as nitric acid, and the nitrous acid produced by nitrosofication remains as nitrous acid.....potential for an acid crash and the high risk of killing off the biological filtration system pretty quickly.
Now, although ammonia may be converted to a greater proportion of ammonium at lower pH there is the potential that the toxicity of ammonia itself could increase at low pH (now, that sentence needs to be read very carefully to see what I'm saying and be clear of what I am not saying !!!)
ian
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- anthonyd (Anthony Debesne)
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Anthony
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- igmillichip (ian millichip)
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Very complex at times, and often that complexity is made more complex by misconceptions often written.
When it comes to the level of knowledge that a fish keeper needs, then here is an analogy:
a car driver does not need to know how the engine works or how to repair it...........but if the driver decides to ignore all the advice on making sure the engine has the right amount and type of oil (and that is not difficult advice to take in) then the driver will either have to learn how to repair the engine or go asking a garage to do it (and hope someone there knows how to repair engines).
If the fish are thriving then something is right; if fish are dying then something is wrong even if everything is "perfect"

ian
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