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Re: Aquatic Plants Digest V2 #1104
Subject: Re:water conditioners and chloramine
Don Hutton wrote:
>>However, I still wonder if the chloramine remover
>>will deprive the plants of ammonia. It seems to me that it
>>would be difficult to dose just the right amount of
>>chloramine remover such that there was no effect
>>on the ammonia produced by fish waste etc.
The ammonia is not "removed", it is bound up with another chemical which
keeps it from being toxic to your fish. (That's why, using some types of
test kits your water still tests as if there is a large quantity of ammonia
present) I have been assured by John Farrell Kuhns of Kordon that this
ammonia is still in a form that nitrifying bacteria can access it, which
means that it will not interfere the the establishment of nitrifying
bacteria in a new fish tank. I would suspect that if it can be accessed by
bacteria, it can also be accessed by plants.
In any case, even if it really _did_ lock the ammonia away from the plants,
I'm not sure what the options you would have with fish in the tank.
Sometimes we need to choose the lesser of two evils. It is certainly
possible to supplement nitrogen in a planted tank in forms that are not
dangerous to your fish. If you kill all your fish off, however, you'll
certainly have more nitrogen available than you need!<g>
Karen Randall
Aquatic Gardeners Association