Ammonia HELP

[bootz]

i purchased some pure ammonia and i have been testing it in a bucket "2gallons" dosing it to see how much i should put in my tank i started off with 1/4 a teaspoon i got no reading, then i put in another 1/4 so i had 1/2 a teaspoon of ammonia in this 2 gallon bucket and still no reading. is there any rule of thumb of how much ammonia i should put per X about of gallons in a tank. thanks for your help

[Dylan5359]

Are you using test strips? You should use liquid test kits. There is a chance that the strips are off.

[carey]

I would check the strips or tester. I did the very same thing and ended up putting ounces in my tank. I had bad test liquid. :-(

Be very careful is my warning, my 29 took 3ml to get to 4ppm.

[tjm80]

First off - how big is your tank?

Second, does your ammonia contain any detergents? I know everyone gets all uptight about "surfactants" but as long as it doesn't foam when you shake it, chances are you're good to go. I didn't realize my bottle of ammonia had "surfactants" in it until about half way through my cycle. I was freaking out. Contacted the manufacturer and asked exactly what the surfactant was and if it was a soap or detergent. I suspect the recommended Ace ammonia has the same "surfactant" that mine did.

[kurtyboh]

you can always use math to help get you we're your going. How stong is your ammonia, here in Germany I get it at 50% strenth which is 500mg/L which also happens to be 500ppmI believe (can anyone else verify this?). In the states most ammonia is sold at approx 8% which would be 80mg/L, there are 3.785L in a gallon, so you would multiply 80(or whatever your percentage times 10 happens to be) by 3.785 to get ml/gallon. At our rate of 80mg/L it becomes 308mg/gallon. Now remember that should be your straight solution strength, there are 764 teaspoons in a gallon and you have only added half of that so you have to double that number (1528) and divide 308 by it to get your ppm. So you should have about .2ppm in your bucket. If it happens to actually be 100% (you would most likely be wearing a mask and heavy gloves to deal with it) you would have 2.4ppm. Actually all of these numbers would be for a gallon bucket and i just remembered you have a 2 so looking at .1ppm and 1.2respectively.
I did this with my 7.5gal tank and started with a 7% ammonia which was what i was planning.

[kurtyboh]

sorry i really messed up on that post its not multiply by ten it's 10,000!...
so back to the beginning, 8% is 80,000mg/L(or ppm-according to this site Conversion Factors). Then 80,000/1528(2gallons in tsp's)=52.3ppm and you have added half of that so should be around 26ppm.
I dont know what I was thinking when I typing that, just too tired for math I guess.