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what is all this PH and ammonia and what kmnot?

Hi fishys , welcome to FP

I don't quite understand the question - are you looking for an explanation of what people mean when they talk about pH and ammonia?

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Back in the saddle!

i mean what is ammonia?what is PH? what is nitrate? and things like that

Mmm, very basic questions but you sound like you want to learn, so you need to read about the "Cycle" -
http://freshaquarium.about.com/cs/biologicalcycle/a/nitrogencycle.htm

Then you need to learn about pH -
http://oursimplejoys.com/freshwateraquaria/article1027.html

After you follow those links to information, you need to learn about water hardness...

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

i got ammonia ddown but i still dont underdstand ph and nitate? can someone give me a simple explanantion for the dumdum?[img src='/images/forums/halo.gif' border=0]

pH is basically a scale to determine whether you water is acidic or basic

Nitrate is well nitrate. NO3- Though it is more important to understand how nitrates come about and the nitrogen cycle than it is to know what nitrates are.

Last edited by Megil Tel'Zeke at 22-Dec-2005 19:54

Hi
To start off with, ammonia is a component of urine.
Ammonia, if it accumulates too much will give the same
result to fish as a wet soaking diaper will do to a babies
butt. It burns the skin and can lead a reding of the
skin (mild chemical burn) to blisters, to some real
complications in human babies. In fish it can actually
burn the gill membranes and the fish can die from it.

The terms pH, GH, KH, neutral, acid, basic or alkaline
are all terms that describe water. It's not just
two atoms of hydrogen to one atom of oxygen.
The fish that we keep come from bodies of water that
for various reasons have specific ranges of values of
each of the mentioned descriptions of water.

The pH of the water is defined as:
[link=http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-calculation&right=pH-definition]http://www.chembuddy.com/?left=pH-calculation&right=pH-definition" style="COLOR: #FF00FF[/link]
7.0 is considered neutral.
8.0 is considered hard or alkaline or basic.
6.0 is considered soft or acidic.

The GH (General Hardness) of the water is a measure
of how "hard" the water is. It is a measure of the
macro elements such as Mg and Ca that is disolved in
the water.

The KH (Carbonate Hardness) of the water is a measure
of the carbonate (CO3) that is disolved in the water and
generally is a measure of the Calcium (Ca) that is in
the water.

Frank


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

If you don't know what nitrates are then you don't understand the nitrogen cycle yet. All leftover organic matter in the tank, ie. fish food, fish waste, dead fish.. so on, are broken down by certain bacteria into ammonia. Ammonia as said above is quite a dangerous compound and even quite small amounts will lead to fish injury or death. Luckily there is another type of bacteria which feeds off the ammonia and makes nitrites. Nitrites are less toxic but we'd still be doing water changes constantly or keeping less fish to a tank if that's where things stopped. To finish the nitrogen cycle yet another type of bacteria turns nitrites into nitrates. Nitrates are far less toxic than the other 2 forms. Nitrates can get as high as 40ppm without doing damage to some fish but are better off kept around 20ppm or below. Ammonia and nitrite should always be zero or even in low amounts over time they will injure fish.

PH is a way to measure the acidity of the water. Ph is determined by the amount of acid in the water compared to the amount of buffer. Buffering capacity is measured by KH. A higher KH means more acid is absorbed and a higher ph or more alkaline/basic water. Lower KH means less acid is absorbed and the lower the ph or more acidic the water. Fish waste and respiration along with the resulting nitrogen cycle introduces a small amount of acids into the water. If the tank is not cleaned and/or the buffer is really low(kh of less than 3degrees) the acids will not be absorbed and the ph will drop. Fish do not like ph changes. They can't adapt very quickly and will end up dead. You want to make sure you have enough buffer(KH) to keep the PH stable so it doesn't drop and kill the fish. There are also some ranges of PH fish can tolerate and some fish that are more sensitive to PH or from specific waters and prefer a very narrow range.

umm actually mammalian urine has Urea in it not ammonia though i suppose the analogy still works. sort of.

Last edited by Megil Tel'Zeke at 23-Dec-2005 07:23

SHAM YOU ARE AWSOME!! thats just what i needed