A Deep Dive on Ammonia Neutralizer Chemistry - Prime, ClorAm-X, Rongalite and friends.

[Formulator]

I suppose Clor AM X is good for saltwater aquariums as It’s sold as a freshwater pond product.?? Pls confirm.

All of this seems to suggest we’d be better off adding Fritz turbo900 at an aggressive rate to decrease ammonia?

Basically none of them work as advertised. This thread may be of interest to you though. It seems we don’t actually need these products in most situations anyways.

Thread: How toxic is ammonia really?

 

[Flame2hawk]

Basically none of them work as advertised. This thread may be of interest to you though. It seems we don’t actually need these products in most situations anyways.

Thread: How toxic is ammonia really?

Thx. Yeah it seems like adding bacteria on regular basis to speed up practice is much better approach.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I suppose Clor AM X is good for saltwater aquariums as It’s sold as a freshwater pond product.?? Pls confirm.

All of this seems to suggest we’d be better off adding Fritz turbo900 at an aggressive rate to decrease ammonia?

It is also described for seawater.

CLORAM-X®​

ClorAm-X is a dry powder water conditioner and ammonia and chlorine neutralizer . It detoxifies and removes ammonia, chlorine and chloramines in both fresh and saltwater.

ClorAm-X®

ClorAm-X is a dry powder water conditioner and ammonia and chlorine neutralizer . It detoxifies and removes ammonia, chlorine and chloramines in both fresh and saltwater.

reedmariculture.com

 

[Flame2hawk]

It is also described for seawater.

CLORAM-X®​

ClorAm-X is a dry powder water conditioner and ammonia and chlorine neutralizer . It detoxifies and removes ammonia, chlorine and chloramines in both fresh and saltwater.

ClorAm-X®

ClorAm-X is a dry powder water conditioner and ammonia and chlorine neutralizer . It detoxifies and removes ammonia, chlorine and chloramines in both fresh and saltwater.

reedmariculture.com

Thx. Didn’t see that notation on liquid derivative but may have just missed it. Thx again.

 

[taricha]

It doesn't mention removal anywhere at all.

So are we saying withe this study that the binder which renders ammonia non toxic is not effective in Prime? Need some clarity as I’m a bit confused. Thx

In addition to the very good summary here....

Yeah - to summarize it briefly:

-The binder theoretically works, but nowhere near effectively enough to be useful for ammonia removal in our tanks.

-The binder itself seems to be more toxic than the ammonia it's attempting to bind.

-Tests showing that the binder bound useful amounts of ammonia are explained by test kit interference caused by the chemicals involved in the binding process.

The longer description below (figure 11 is particularly helpful here):

I'd also add that the "detoxifying"/"binding"/"removing"/"neutralizing" etc language questions can be safely put to the side.
The actual reaction scheme with ammonia from the KH Brown thesis is this.....

If you are adding these chemicals to interact with ammonia - this reaction is what you are trying to do. (bind it into the product at the bottom right).

We've been able to measure that reaction process and find to what degree it occurs. And been able to measure how much of these chemical binders are in the products.
You need a LOT of the chemical, and you need a LOT of patience because it takes hours and hours to approach the final binding amount.

The max allowable dose of ClorAm-X (10x = 2.4mM) gets in the range of doing something real with modest binding of ammonia by 24-48 hours. You might be able to detect it if you try really carefully.

But you'd need ~73x the recommended dose of Prime (max allowable is 5x) to get that same amount of chemical as the max dose of ClorAm-X.

So claiming it can do anything to ammonia at such a tiny dose of the same chemicals is just fantasy.

All of this seems to suggest we’d be better off adding Fritz turbo900 at an aggressive rate to decrease ammonia?

Agreed. In the contexts where ammonia control is actually needed, like quarantine / medicated tanks etc, then an NH3 sensing film (if formaldehyde is in use) and robust nitrifying biofilter like Fritz ought to be used.