ammonia/ammonium test kit?

[wonghee76]

Hai , everyone....

i m from malaysia. how every1 doing. i m very new in aquarium world ..i m an undergraduate in one of the university at malaysia. i start admire the beautiful world of aquarium a few month ago....but my tank of fish keep on dying...

so i figure out that the so call nitrogen cycle is not develop yet and my ammonia level is too high so i try to detect the ammonia level with all kind of test kit....

when i went to the pets shop, i saw two type of tester for the aquarium pharmaceutical product with the item number #33A and #LR8600, confuse about the usage, i went to ask the salesperson about the different between them, but the salesperson had no idea what is that and reply me one is for salt water and the other for salt and freshwater, one can conduct 75 test while the other can conduct 135 test. since i have enough money to buy both, so i end up buying both and wana have a try at home, as i m a chemistry student, i wana know the different in more detail.

After reach home, i found out that
1. the both the product #33A and #LR8600 need 8 drop from each reagent per test, why the #LR8600 can claim to be 135 test and #33A can only have 75 test? as the volume of the tester reagent and the drops where the same?
2. I had email to ap and ask about the different between the two product and can i distinguish the ammonia from ammonium? they disappointed me by answering that their product cannot distinguish ammonia and ammonium and the different between the two product is #33A is for salt water and #LR8600 is for salt and freshwater. but later when i was on the water quality class, i found out there where two type of tester for ammonia/ammonium test, one is nessler reagent and the other is salicylate reagent and later i found out that the label at the product of #33A is nessler reagent and #LR8600 is salicylate reagent. why cant the Brian Bridgwater from the AP Technical Service and Research department just told me about the different between the two product directly and not just "one is for freshwater and the other one is for salt and freshwater"! don't u think the way they answering is very unprofessional? very disappointed with their customer care.

thanks you.

Hee

 

[Pure]

Honestly, talking about the difference between ammonia and ammonium was probably a bit over their heads. Answering your question that one is for salt and one is for fresh/salt water is really all you need to know. Breaking down the difference with more information isn't really needed. If your tank is salt water then use the one for salt water, if it's a fresh water tank use the one for fresh.

Why would you want to test for ammonium? Unless you PH is lower than 6.5 you won't have ammonium. And if it is, there really isn't a need to test for it as it's harmless to fish. If your PH ever goes above 6.5 then the ammonium will convert to ammonia. Then you have a problem.

If you have low PH the ammonium will still grow beneficial bacteria that will eat it, then convert it to nitrite. The nitrite will then grow the bacteria needed to convert it to nitrate. Thus the nitrogen cycle still takes place.

Welcome to the site.

 

[wonghee76]

thanks.

the AP ammonia/ammonium test kit can detect both ammonia/ammonium at the same time and cannot distinguish then. as percentage of ammonia in our tank is control by ph as shown in table below:

pH 6 7 8 9 10 11
% NH3 0 1 4 25 78 96
% NH4 100 99 96 75 22 4


so at higher pH we also will have ammmonium. it is very important to distinguish them as ammonia is very dangerous to our fish as with a trace concentration also will kill our fish.

2. all the while at uni, v are using nessler reagent to detect ammonia content of the natural sea and pond water. May be the AP had change the formula that #33A is a nessler reagent that can detect both ammonia/ammonium in fresh water only? But why should they do that? that make me confuse?


thanks you

Hee

 

[FroggyFox]

I think maybe you're looking into it a little too deep. These test kits are made for hobbyists, most of which are not chemistry students at a university. Most of the test kits barely give you more of a distinguishable reading than if there is something in your water or not...BUT we use them because thats really all we need to know.

In a tank that is cycled (established, gone through an initial cycling period where there are not enough bacteria to convert the ammonia and nitrite to nitrates so we see spikes in ammonia and nitrite) there will be 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite in the tank. The test kits ARE good for telling us when there is 0 of something in the water.

As for your actual question about nh3 vs nh4...I have no idea, or maybe I'm not understanding your question. My guess is that the kit will pick up both and does not distinguish between the two. The difference between the two different types of reagent CAN come into play when some other products on the market are used. Some products such as ammolock can give you a false positive of harmful ammonia when using one of those types of reagent (sorry I dont remember which one), but not if you're using the other type of reagent.

I also agree with Pure's assessment of why the rep at AP told you what he did. They may not have actually known the scientific terms and if they did, they may have figured you didn't...figuring you were just another one of 100 calls a day they get about their test kits from hobbyists who dont bother reading the instructions. However I have no idea why they can say one test can do so many more tests than the other...unless they're different size bottles or something! That sounds a little fishy

Welcome to mft!

 

[Pure]

You got me confused. As you are a chem student and I am far from one. But I've always been under the impression that ammonium only occurs in our tanks when PH drops below 6.5 and thus ammonia is converted, then it will convert back to ammonia after the PH raises higher than this.

This is a basic rule of thumb that Discus and Altum angel keepers have learned to live by. Can you offer a little more info than the table? If the ammonium is not coming from being converted from ammonia..then where is the source?

I'm by no means trying to say your wrong, but want a little more of an explanation so I can have a better understanding.

 

[wonghee76]

hehhehe....

as far as i know, ammonium salt is form from ammonia that react with acid. below is some fact that percentage of ammonia is more when pH is alkaline:

1.From wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia

".....Formation of salts
One of the most characteristic properties of ammonia is its power of combining directly with acids to form salts; thus with hydrochloric acid it forms ammonium chloride (sal-ammoniac); with nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, etc. However perfectly dry ammonia will not combine with perfectly dry hydrogen chloride, moisture being necessary to bring about the reaction.[1]

NH3 + HCl → NH4Cl
The salts produced by the action of ammonia on acids are known as the ammonium salts and all contain the ammonium ion (NH4+).........."



that mean when the water is acidic, the ammonia like to take up the H+ ion form acid to form NH4+ (ammonium) but when the water is alkaline, it cant take much H+ and stay more percentage in ammonia form.


correct me if i m worng.but this is all i understand form the book.*BOUNCINGS

ok.i can accept that not all customer is knowledgeble...so nextime when i ever ask such question again, mayb i need to mention my background.*SUNSMILE*

the quantity of both the product is the same, #33A have only 1 reagent (30ml)with that need 8 drop per test and #LR8600 have 2 reagent (30ml each) and each of the reagent need 8 drops per test olso. so it is up to the consummer to decide "will the #LR8600 gave 135 test and #33A can only gave 75 test?"*twirlysmi

is the nessler reagent #33A that will gave false result when our water is treat with ammolock or amquell

i may be a chemistry student but i am very new in fish keeping hobies, my fish dead after a week i kept them in the tank and only that i found out article about nitrogen cycle and start to monitor the ammonia level....

i read from some article that water conditioner were needed to help built up the nitrogen cycle, can anyone advice me the bacterial filter start or the water conditioner work excellent?which brand is the best?

thanks you

Hee

 

[Salty Fishes]

First, the information you posted about ammonia/ammonium with regards to the pH of the water makes sense to me.

I don't know the reaction that occurs to indicate the ammonia levels of different tests, but I'm fairly sure that every test kit will give you "false positive" readings for ammonia when ammonium is present in the water.

My guess about why one test kit is only for freshwater, whereas the other can be used for freshwater and saltwater, is because the one meant only for freshwater uses a reactant that will combine with a mineral present in high quantities in salt water. This would cause that reactant to precipitate out of solution or become unavailable in general, before the reaction that is supposed to occur actually happens. So, the right reaction won't occur, and it won't indiciate the level properly. Does that make sense? I'm not sure about this anyway, its just my guess... *thumbsups

My guess about why one kit only has 75 whereas the other has 135 is that the drops coming from the dropper in the second kit are smaller. Less reagent is actually needed, but the company decided that they wanted the test to use eight drops.

If the water conditioner you are referring to is just dechlorinator, then it is only necessary to the nitrogen cycle in that the nitrifying bacteria that cause the cycle cannot grow in chlorinated water. It must be used any time that chlorinated water is put into the tank (such as at water changes) or else of the beneficial bacteria that you have been growing will die.

I hope that my ramblings helped at least a little bit! *laughingc

 

[FroggyFox]

its late, but just wanted to point out the stickies at the top of the beginner forum...there are some about setting up a new tank and cycling that might be helpful if you haven't read them already.

Basically for the nitrogen cycle to start you need 'safe' water, (water that has been treated with dechlorinator/ water conditioner) some waste, (if you have fish in the tank that works, or if you dont have any fish there is a 'fishless cycle' method that starts using ammonia from a bottle) and just wait. The ammonia will spike, then the nitrite will spike and then both will drop to 0 and your nitrates will skyrocket. We do water changes to take the nitrates out of the water.

As for a specific brand of dechlor/water conditioner...I dont think one is really better than another. I use bigals generic version of aquarium pharmaceuticals "stress coat"...which is a water conditioner with a few additives. I think the product called "Prime" is probably the most popular water conditioner among members of this board...but I've never personally used it.

 

[wonghee76]

hai...

thanks for the advice to start up a nitrogen cycle....

for the number of test for the two product#33A and #LR8600, the second that will gave double number of test number was not bcos of the droper size, as a company will have all the droper the same size for cost minimizing and i had try to measure the ammount of liquid of each of the dropper and it is the same...now the question is why they try to made customer confuse by the test number ? it is the #LR8600 is more expensive, then they just wrote for number?

as i said before, the nessler reagent #33A that claim to be for freshwater only is used widely in my uni lab for ammonia testing for saltwater, as you said, mayb the reagent for the tester had been modified by ap so that it can test only freshwater and not marine water, but why ?

mayb i m thinking in too deep liao....i treat this hobby as another assigment

 

[Qrystal]

the quantity of both the product is the same, #33A have only 1 reagent (30ml)with that need 8 drop per test and #LR8600 have 2 reagent (30ml each) and each of the reagent need 8 drops per test olso.

Maybe the company just screwed up. I can't see any other explanation. It just doesn't compute, as you've noticed! *twirlysmi

I have the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Freshwater Master Test Kit, and the ammonia test is salicylate based. The box says "over 700 tests", but there's seven bottles in the kit, and five different things that can be tested. Just for fun, I played with the numbers a bit. I got the following results:

Assuming the drops are all the same (unknown) size, the total number of tests in the box is equal to 4171 / (120*dropsize). If this is really > 700 like the box says, then the dropsize must be < 0.0496 mL. With this dropsize, my ammonia test has at least 93 tests. My ammonia bottles have 37 mL, so 30 mL of the same formula would have at least (30/37)*93 = 75 tests.

Therefore, since we should be able to assume that Aquarium Pharmaceuticals ships the same salicylate formula everywhere, the number of tests claimed on the box for your #LR8600 must be wrong. It does indeed have only 75 tests, just like the product #33A.

(Wow, that actually worked! Hehehe~!)

 

[wonghee76]

wah...

amazing....really like your calculation

nice to meet u