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Does Ammonia, nitrite, nitrate evporate with water?

Or no, it will build up in concentration just like salt and other dissolved metals as water been evaporated?

No. Well thats what I remember reading anyway

I think that only water evaporates & leaves everything else in the tank.


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Not being an expert on water chemistry, I have an opinion nevertheless

Answer – Yes and No :%)

Yes: Ammonia and Nitrite will disappear based on the cycle of a tank. Bateria will transform one to the other, and the latter will be transformed by different bacteria into Nitrate. As such, it is removed.

No: As itself, Nitrate would, not go anywhere. But in a planted tank it will be “eaten” by the plants and any plant part that leaves the water would remove it from the tank (i.e. pruning). Though there might be more to the Nitrate than I understand. Maybe someone could enlighten us (but please keep it simple as I am very bad at interpreting chemical formulas).

Ingo

---

Proud Member of the New Jersey Aquatic Gardeners Club

Hi,
The simple, direct, answer to your question is "No."
Evaporation removes only the water (H2O) leaving behind
an increasing concentration of organic waste products
as well as inorganics.

Most folks will top off the tank, sometimes on a daily
basis (as I do) for a week at a time. Where I live, I
loose about a 1/4 of a gallon of water/day. At the end
of a week, I do my regular tank maintenance. That is I
scrape any algae that might have formed on the glass,
run the Python syphon lightly across the exposed gravel,
and drain off about 20% of the water.

In most tanks, regular water changes are a requirement.
They are your way, of imitating natures way, of refreshing
the water (rain or run off from storms).

Specifically, because of the nitrogen cycle that exists
in all tanks, the Ammonia never really exists in any
measurable amount save a well equipped laboratory.
Ammonia is changed to nitrite which is changed to nitrates
darned near as fast as the ammonia is secreted by the
fish and other critters.

Frank


Last edited by FRANK at 10-Jul-2005 10:22

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

I have a feeling there was a way that ammonia could leave the tank through something *like* evaporation, but I don't think it would be in any quantity that would be likely to make any measurable difference... I'll have to do some reading because thats going to niggle at me.

For animals, the entire universe has been neatly divided into things to (a) mate with, (b) eat, (c) run away from, and (d) rocks. - Terry Pratchett

no..its just the water molecules thats converted...not those "annoying" chem..its like sea water..the water evap retaining the salt.

)[font color="#C00000"] there is a very easy way of purifying old water using evaporation.

first you get a bucket and put some type of plastic over it. put a rock on the plastic so that it weighs it down a bit. then you put a funel under the indented part of the plastic and a hose leading from the funel to another bucket away from sunlight. you then fill the bucket with dirty water and leave it in the sun. the water will evaporate and go into the funel. at the end you will be left with a salty layer on the inside of the bucket of dirty water which can be scraped of easily.:8 [/font]