Advice On Ammonia

[paulbr1]

Hi, I have been trying all morning to locate a seller of ammonia, I have tried my LFS "haha" all diy stores and the Chemist to no avail.

Also tried the bay of E and found this - Ammonium Chloride (sal ammoniac) 400g Non Hazardous NH4Cl - http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Ammonium-Chloride-40...A1%7C240%3A1318

Problem there is I know ammonia is NH3 so it looks like this also contails salt, is this a nono for tropical or can it be filtered or does anybody have a link or know where i can buy it as pure as?

Thanks again font of all

 

[Miss Wiggle]

go to any large boots and you'll find it there

not sure exactly where you are in yorkshire but if nothing else then you'll find it at the big boots in Leeds next to zavvi and not far from the train station.

 

[paulbr1]

Cheers will do later, Donny by the way

 

[Miss Wiggle]

not too far then, there's a big boots in donny though somewhere i'm sure.

been an age since i've been over to donny though.

if not try homebase as well.

 

[waterdrop]

Some UK members have mentioned that sometimes if you go in these Homebase and Boots and other places and ask the clerks, they will tell you that they don't have it, because of safety issues apparently. Then, these members say, if you go on back to where the brooms and mops and cleanup stuff are, there it will be, sitting right there among the other bottles of cleaners. So that's one more little area of persistence you need to have! Good luck and let us know your story as it unfolds.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[pammy172]

Homebase just have it stacked on the shelves in the household cleaning section You'll also prob find it at the big Morrisons at Hellaby/Bramley.

Try an indendent pharmacy or Lloyds too.

 

[waterdrop]

Its fun , driving all over looking for pure ammonia is the great Rite of Passage that makes you a real tropical fish hobbyist! Try to enjoy it, you only ever need to go through this once and then for the rest of your hobby days you have your own mature media forever!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[paulbr1]

Hi, cheers all, I tried Boots in Donny - no avail "no longer stocked"

And after reading about dodgy Homebase Ammonia I thought hmm. should I shouldn't I - so I went in found it waited until nobody was looking gave it a good shake "good job nobody was looking I had my big coat on" opened up and presto no bubbles!!

From another post it seemed that they may have changed their ingredients but this one was clean at least, I have set up a small 35l test tank with the media primed with bottled Cycle "Yuk" but I had some left, then when all is ok I am going to try it again without the Cycle cack to compare any difference.

I have time on my hands "Redundant"

 

[pammy172]

....

I have time on my hands "Redundant"

Glad you got some but sorry to hear about the redundancy hope something turns up soon.

 

[waterdrop]

Glad you found some regular household "aqueous" and hopefully it will be clean. Drives us nuts how they will just dump in soaps, fragrances and dyes or who knows what else because they think its just getting used to clean floors!

So I forget the exact chemistry (this will attract our chemists like flies, lol) but the NH3 (ammonia) is a gas, in its natural state. Then I forget if it has to be combined with something before it can be dissolved in water but when we get these bottles, its definately "aqueous ammonia", some percentage of pure ammonia dissolved in pure water. The usual percentage is 9.5% in UK because of laws that make it easier to sell if under 10%, something like that I believe. In the USA, there appear to be more instances where the percentage is lower than 9.5%, but also plenty that may be the same.

I believe the Ammonium Chloride (NH4Cl) is indeed a salt that can be added to water to make very pure aqueous ammonia, but I can't remember for sure. During the 1980's, in the early years of the fishless cycling idea, the merits of various ways of making up the ammonia were debated quite a lot I read, and there was some salt (NH4Cl I'm vaguely remembering, thus I guess this to be true) that was thought to make up "better ammonia for cycling" and fishless cyclers would strike up friendships with lab guys on college campuses to get their stuff. Eventually it was worked out that none of this made any real difference and everyone seemed to settle on "the cheap stuff on the mop shelf!"

~~waterdrop~~