Hi everybody,
I have a situation where I have ammonia (due to chloramine) in high pH [8.5] tap water.
Under normal circumstances, I'd just treat with prime and do water changes. However, I have goldfish and snails. So, nitrates are always an issue, because the goldies are messy, and the snails are sensitive to the 'trates. I've only got two juvie goldies and I don't overfeed. They get hand fed some pellets for one minute minutes five days a week, and 3-5 days a week they get a spoonful of duckweed.
I'm already having to do 30% water changes twice a week in my 29 gallon _heavily_ planted tank, with spathyphyllum and pothos growing out the HOB, just to keep the nitrate under 25 ppm.
My thought is that having ammonium in the tap water, even locked up with prime/amquel/whatever, is really not helping my nitrate issue. I tried setting a container treated with prime aside and growing some pothos out of it, but it just doesn't suck it up fast enough. It takes over two weeks.
So my new idea is sticking a piece of hosiery with some zeolite in it to prepare it for the PWCs. What I'm not sure about is whether the zeolite will suck up bound ammonium, chloramine, or only free ammonia.
So the actual question is:
Does zeolite clear chloramine?
If not, does it clear bound ammonium?
If not, is there a product that will break apart chloramine, but not bind the free ammonia?
Thanks so much for any help!
Rachel
I have a situation where I have ammonia (due to chloramine) in high pH [8.5] tap water.
Under normal circumstances, I'd just treat with prime and do water changes. However, I have goldfish and snails. So, nitrates are always an issue, because the goldies are messy, and the snails are sensitive to the 'trates. I've only got two juvie goldies and I don't overfeed. They get hand fed some pellets for one minute minutes five days a week, and 3-5 days a week they get a spoonful of duckweed.
I'm already having to do 30% water changes twice a week in my 29 gallon _heavily_ planted tank, with spathyphyllum and pothos growing out the HOB, just to keep the nitrate under 25 ppm.
My thought is that having ammonium in the tap water, even locked up with prime/amquel/whatever, is really not helping my nitrate issue. I tried setting a container treated with prime aside and growing some pothos out of it, but it just doesn't suck it up fast enough. It takes over two weeks.
So my new idea is sticking a piece of hosiery with some zeolite in it to prepare it for the PWCs. What I'm not sure about is whether the zeolite will suck up bound ammonium, chloramine, or only free ammonia.
So the actual question is:
Does zeolite clear chloramine?
If not, does it clear bound ammonium?
If not, is there a product that will break apart chloramine, but not bind the free ammonia?
Thanks so much for any help!
Rachel
