[Coral-List] Re: NH4 conc. in aquarium water
TDWYATT at aol.com
TDWYATT at aol.com
Wed Dec 28 20:43:15 EST 2005
In a message dated 12/26/2005 11:02:20 PM Eastern Standard Time,
ctwiliams at yahoo.com writes:
Could you provide some of the "lot" references for
ammonia NH4 being 20ppm for coral propagation as these
levels far exceed the levels accepted for discharge of
treated sewage effluent to marine waters.
Are these levels acceptable for aquaria only ?? - I
believe they would stimulate alot of alga in the tank
or real water.
Dr. Tom Williams
In the reef aquaria hobby, ammonia concentrations are only accepted at ZERO
detectable ammonia using standard hobbyists kits. These kits detect levels
down to around 0.1 PPM NH3/NH4+. Levels greater than 3 PPM are deadly to most
fish and inverts.
I suspect that the reference of 20PPM as a upper level is to nitrATES, which
is the upper limit for nitrates in reef biotopic emulations. This most
often resulting in browning of stony coral specimens and stunted calcification
rates (usually with elevated phosphates as well) as a result of poor husbandry
habits for closed aquarium systems.
HTH,
Tom Wyatt
_tdwyatt at aol.com_ (mailto:tdwyatt at aol.com)
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