RE: [Killietalk] Wouldnt agree with...

["David Lains" <david at zfin_org>]

Hi 

In some cases I've dealt with the carbon actually becomes biological.  The
carbon soaks up the chlorine and the bacteria eat the ammonia.  I'm not sure
which happens first but I've worked with several labs who have killed many
fish after a scheduled change of their carbon pre filters.  

Best fishes
David 

-----Original Message-----
From: killietalk-bounces at aka_org [mailto:killietalk-bounces at aka_org] On
Behalf Of Wright Huntley
Sent: Saturday, December 04, 2004 4:43 PM
To: killifish discussion list
Subject: Re: [Killietalk] Wouldnt agree with...



"Riverside Pet Supply" <thebiologist at charter_net> wrote:

 > "Ammonia is very hard to remove from water, but carbon filtration  > will
do it."
 >
 >
 > Nothing agitation cannot remove, however carbon removing ammonia?
 > This has been discussed to death, but never seen it removed in my  >
system's using plain carbon, under city pressure. An addition of  > zeolite
does the trick for a awhile. Markus

Marcus,

Ammonia is only very weakly grabbed by activated carbon, so requires lots of
contact time (slow trickle) through a finely granulated and compressed block
to work at all. I have never gotten the LFS lumps to do a thing to it, for
example. There are different qualities and granulation, but with the right
ones, I think I have gotten it to work. 
Try slow flow through a freshly-opened "taste and odor" filter, and see if
it is removed.

My vague impression, without ever doing controlled tests, is that chlorine
is grabbed much better than ammonia, and that the combination
(chloramines) may be filtered better, too.

The final factor is: are you trying to remove ammonium or ammonia? I
suspect, again without tests, that pH can play a big role if they are
removed differently by aeration. Again, low pH may keep agitation from
removing much ammonia, while overnight could be just fine at a pH of 7.5 or
above. [I think the ammonium ion must gain an electron to become gaseous
ammonia and the electrons may become more scarce as ammonia is removed.]

Wright


--
Wright Huntley - Rt. 001 Box K36, Bishop CA 93514 - whuntley at verizon_net
                       760 872-3995

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