RE: [Killietalk] Cloromine (sic), (sic)

[Charles Harrison <Charles at inkmkr_com>]

Scott Davis wrote:
> One question on this chloramines controversy. How does the rather
> aberrant pH of St Louis water effect this situation ? I recall that the
> pH there is close to 9. Doesn't this effectively reduce the toxity of
> the ammonia  released by the hypo. Whereas in a situation with more
> normal pH (7), the ammonia might be a real problem. So experience unique
to St Louis may not apply to the majority of the rest of the US.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is no question that charcoal is best for removing covalent 
compounds like Chlorine  and Chloramine  and many bad agriculture 
chemicals. No dispute here. I attribute much of the present day 
success of hobbyists to the use of RO units, not because of the use 
of softer water but to fact that even the waste water goes through 
the charcoal and the  Chlorine/Chloramine is removed. This has to be 
GREAT!

The affects of Ammonia may well be documented, the % of this gas at 
the pH's we keep our fish is trivial. I will leave it up to 
statistics as to the most important effect, pH or dissolved gas.
Hypo (Thiosulfate)  does  a great job of removing the Chlorine/Chloramine.
Amquel and other similar Chlorine removers do a good job as well. 
None of these compounds effectively reacts with Ammonia to change the 
valence state to produce Nitrogen or Nitrates. They complex with the 
NH3+  and then decompose to slowly release the Ammonium ions back 
into the solution.

pH controls the presence of Ammonia as long as Ammonium ions are 
present. Ammonium is dangerous at high pH's and Nitrites are 
dangerous at low pH's.

Scott,
The higher pH's allow the equilibrium to shift toward the gas, 
Ammonia. Lower pH's are more safe until it gets low enough to release 
Nitrous acid into the water. pH swings may not be the total cause of 
the problems which Mr. Huntley's refers to, but are most likely the 
things which have caused the release of harmful compounds in the 
water in question. Very soft water is much more susceptible to pH 
swings since there is little or no buffering.

What is different about St Louis water?
	I don't  know of any real differences. High pH's are used by 
the water supply Co's to keep the Chloramine  more stable and aid in 
dropping the hardness and turbidity of the river water. Back in Texas 
the same thing was useful to drop the same things with lake water. 
Ask around in the Municipal Water purification plants in Chicago. My 
data from them is all about the same.

IDK what did the harm to the fishes Mr Huntley is speaking of, but I 
doubt it was Ammonium ions.

I think this discussion could go on and on, I will propose a test, I 
will set up a 5 gal tank of A. australes, get them stable and eating 
settled in, etc. and then over a period of 2 weeks add Ammonium 
Chloride to their water until it kills them and see just what is the 
lethal 50% dose.

Will that settle the question??

Charles Harrison



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