Nh3\nh4

[agusf]

hello
where I live (switzerland) I cant get a hold of ammonia tester. I was so frustrated so i called up this pro aquariumstore and he told me he had nh3 in stock but not nh4.
whats the difference?
and, any help on getting hold on a tester?

 

[waterdrop]

Interesting. I do not know if you've run across a true NH4 ammonium tester or if its the typical tester that can measure both NH3 (ammonia) and NH4 and the person has just read only part of the labeling or something. (Whoops, on re-read, it sounds like the store guy WAS saying he had an NH3 test, which would indeed be just what you want!)

Ammonium (NH4) is ammonia (NH3) with an extra proton. Since all protons (a proton is two up-quarks and a down-quark I believe) carry a single positive charge, ammonium is a cation (a positive ion.) When ammonia is in water a little bit of it will go in to the ammonium state, depending on the pH (more acid means more ammonia, more basic means a little more ammonium.) Bacteria (Nitrosomonas spp.) will "eat" (they are single-cell so they actually "process", not eat, lol) either ammonia or ammonium equally well. Ammonium is not harmful to fish - it is what the conditions will convert ammonia in to for about 24 hours max after they are dosed, assuming that's one of the conditioner's "features."

Most testers just show you the combined NH3 and NH4 total concentration. This is fine for all but a few situations where people have very high NH3 in their tap water but are in a fish-in cycle and need to do water changes and are trying to handle the difficulty by repeatedly dosing conditioner to turn it in to NH4 (this technique really just doesn't work in the long run is my recollection.)

Find out which liquid NH3 tester he's offering, it should be fine probably.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

The difference between NH3 and NH4 is quite simple. The difference is simply the difference between toxic ammonia and non-toxic forms of ammonia. If you can measure the present concentration of the toxic form, you have all of the information that you will need to treat your tank chemistry properly. Here on TFF we treat things as if both forms were equally toxic but it is simply not true. In reality, the less toxic form of ammonia is not a real threat to any fish. If you have a pH that is very low, all of your ammonia will be in the less toxic form and our concerns about low levels of ammonia will not truly be applicable. Having said that, an admission of sorts, i do not advocate people ignoring even the less toxic form of ammonia because it can change so quickly and easily to the toxic form of the chemical. I will continue to advocate the needed water changes even if water chemistry is relatively safe with the pH we find in a tank. No "new to the hobby" person is really qualified by their very limited experience to say that a particular ammonia reading is acceptable. They must treat any ammonia reading as potentially toxic.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I think its very wise that you've brought the discussion back to the things of practical importance that we want to focus on here in the beginners section: Forms of ammonia, regardless of which, need to be dealt with. In Fishless cycling we grow the ammonia oxidizing bacteria so that they will be there to reduce either form of ammonia to zero -before- the fish are ever exposed at all and in Fish-in cycling we personally play the role of these bacteria by instead removing so much water from the tank that the concentration of either ammonia form is reduced to what is effectively zero for the fish or below the point at which we think much damage would begin.

While knowing about the different forms (NH3 and NH4+) is interesting, its not something we would use to change our actions in the vast majority of cases.

~~waterdrop~~