Ammonia and Nitrate Test

September 3—Explain how to conduct an Ammonia Test and a Nitrate Test.  Where do these substances come from?  What are the effects on aquatic life?

To conduct an Ammonia Test, you first add 5ml of water from your aquarium and add it to a water testing tube. You then place 8 drops of Ammonia test # 1 and #2 into the tube keeping the bottle vertical while dropping. Gently swirly the tube and then wait 5 minutes to read your results, getting results in the yellow is the goal but 25 is acceptable for fish to live in as well. If the ammonia is too high you need to add more bacterial supplement into your tank.

To conduct a Nitrate test, you need 10 drops of Nitrate Test #1 into another 5ml aquarium water sample in a test tube and then swirl it together. Shake the #2 Nitrate test bottle for 30 seconds and then add 10 drops to the water sample, and then swirl for a minute. Wait 5 minutes and then read the result shown. Up to 40 is alright.  If the Nitrate is bad, you need to clean your rocks, add plants, add bacterial supplement and at the most do a 1/2 water change. 

Ammonia is most often comes from animal waste, but it also occurs naturally with trace amounts found in the atmosphere. Uneaten fish food and decaying algae also release ammonia.

Nitrates come from nitrogen where it takes a different form in both plants and animals. Nitrates can come from nitrogen based fertilizers, septic systems and manure storage areas. Often Nitrogen is caused by simply having ammonia in the water as well. 

Ammonia is a tissue irritant, causing real problems for delicate areas such as exposed gill tissue. The gill tissue responds to this irritation by hemorrhaging, with the delicate filaments thickening and clumping together — a condition called hyperplasia. The vast reduction in surface area caused by the clumping reduces a tropical fish’s ability to absorb oxygen from the water. In addition to their undesirable state of affairs, any oxygen that is absorbed is done so suboptimally, as the presence of ammonia reduces the blood’s carrying capacity.

Nitrate poisioning presents itself only in the the latter stages of the poisoning process. General listlessness, lack of feeding reflex, erratic swimming and behaviors, and overall poor health are all signs of nitrate poisoning.

My tank tested with a 25 on the Ammonia and a 0 on the Nitrates