The ongoing ammonia problems

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Kaliska

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Dec 6, 2015
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I'm still having weird ammonia problems. So originally my tap tested 2ppm ammonia but when I went to test my first cycling tank it was insane for nitrites and nitrates. I left a dish of tap water sit and I got more like 4-5ppm ammonia. I've been through 3 api ammonia kits and 2 tests later on a stocked tank with a seachem kit that matched the api
So I got an RO unit and seachem equilibrium and alkaline buffer. The ro water tested 0 everything including tds. This is the only time I have gotten a true 0 reading on ammonia. I always get a small positive ammonia on all water but the straight RO. It's just not quite the color of 0. If I put the ro water in a plastic container and immediately add buffer I gain 1ppm ammonia per day on the water sitting there. No matter how much I buffer and 2 different kinds of plastic containers including the ones the betta breeders use for spawning. I went back to using glass tanks for mixing my water. I still get .25-.5 ammonia increase a day whether I leave the buffer out or heavily buffer it as soon as the water is deep enough to run the powerhead. I use seachem prime and seachem assured me it should not be causing any false readings, but I'm wondering about the equilibrium now. Some ingredient in it really does not mix into my RO water at all and makes a brown precipitate
Once water is in a tank the ammonia gets processed to the equivalent nitrate and then the nitrates stop going up. Most of my tanks still only test 20ppm or less so I've been running the ammonia positive water through the biggest tanks and taking the cycled water out for the small tanks. I'd like to solve this mystery though.
 

fishorama

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So it's just baking soda huh? I hope you're not paying much for that...but I'm guessing (& only that) there must be something else in there, otherwise it's not really all that "stable" IME...& that can cause drastic swings in KH & pH, I've been there, not so good.

When I first had "soft" water I'd never had to deal with dosing for KH & GH. I used crushed coral in the filter for GH & baking soda (when I remembered) once or twice/week for KH, often only after WCs. My KH was not really stable, the plants used it up faster than I added it (I'm a very lazy doser for all additives). My tank was not so happy...nor were my fish.

It's strange your RO gains ammonia on aging. I wonder what the heck is going on too...I'll think about it some more & maybe ask my "water goddess" friend, she really helped me when I first moved to MA & had soft water issues. What kind of "RO system" are you using? How many filtration "units" are involved...I haven't tried RO, so really not any help...
 

Kaliska

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I'm sure it's not just pure baking soda but it's meant to avoid phosphate based buffers in planted tanks. Ph hasn't really been a problem. I get a solid 7.8 or 8.0 depending what I dose. It's never varied. I may be using limestone in several tanks anyway and I want a tanganyika setup so I might go to a cichlid buffer and keep it a solid 8 except some of those softwater fish I want to breed.

I have a portable RO unit off ebay with a sediment filter, regular carbon, ro membrane, and di resin. Without the di resin I got 1 to maybe 2 ppm out of the tap again but not the 4-5 it was getting up to. RO membrane doesn't fully remove ammonia. I have to replace my DI resin every 2-3months so far. Before running the ro unit I threw a bag of purigen in my tank and it needed recharged 4x or more faster than my previous tanks in other water. That was part of why I went with full RO instead of a piecing together a sediment and exchange resin filter system. Apparently my system does not remove chloramine and I think I just need to change to a certain type of carbon someone pointed out. I might have to add another canister of it on myself. Still looking into that. However, if it was the chloramine the stuff I add to the water would have broken it up right away and it would only go so high. I should also get high nitrates from the same age of water when my nitrates stay below 20ppm and below 10 on the planted tank if I use the water within 24-48hrs. That isn't what I got when I first setup a tank with all that ammonia in the water.

I asked specifically about the equilibrium because an odd thing I keep finding is this brown stuff left behind from what seems to be the equilibrium mix. It never fully mixes no matter what and I get increasing amounts of brown that collects on the bottom of the mixing container and the strainer of the powerhead. I haven't asked seachem about it yet. I figured it was harmless mineral separation that for some reason wasn't managing to stay mixed in. Maybe there is some more serious reaction going on.
 

Rbishop

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ever try the initial dissolve in warm-hot water, then add to the regular mixing tank to cool?
 

Kaliska

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I was thinking mixing it in something smaller might work. I have mixed up concentrated doses in 1gallon containers to slowly add directly to tank. Right now I went down to using a 10g so I can fill it with ro faster, mix it faster, and easily have 10g a day to fully use up. For now though that means I'm filling every day to use the next day. I might setup a test container to see if I can narrow it down to a specific thing I'm adding or if it's just the water itself.
 

Kaliska

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I threw my newly recharged bag of purigen in my water change container. After sitting in 10gallons for 24hrs, 3 times (30gallons went through the container in 3-4days) it is brown. It is supposed to last 1ml/g for 6months and this is a 100ml bag. I have put these on tanks up to 90g in the past and when using RO/DI that has the minerals added back in like this it would only need recharged once a year. What the hell is in my ro water.... It tests 0tds...
 
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