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I want to know if using a powerhead with air running through aimed at the surface of the water would help get rid of ammonia and keep it down. Thats all i want to know

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pnh

On its own, no, it might actually increase the ammonia as bacterial decomposition near the surface of the water increases, along with the higher level of gaseous exchange .It might help to prevent surface films of protiens appearing on the water surface but in a small area the efficiency of the process wouldnt be effective enought to cause cycling.If your tank suffers from surface films a surface current will help break down the protiens and floating fats and return them to solution so the filter can pick them up, and a few of the proteins will be broken down by bacteria at the surface film, but that will be about it. This process is actually much more effective in saltwater than fresh, and protien skimmers are based on these principles, but in freshwater the strength of the surface film prevents the appropriate reaction from taking place to the degree that for most freshwater tanks , skimmers are functionally useless. The reverse is true in marine situations where apart from living rock and some current, a skimmer may be the only filtration you need for a lightly stocked tank.


To clarify, there are many kinds of bacteria, but they can be divided into two groups of functionality. One kind will deal with traditional decomposition, the by-products of which are ammonia, methane, and nitrite and a few others, the fish by breathing and excretion will add to the ammonia directly. The second group of bacteria are the ones that we try to encourage the most, and these are the ones (possibly two species of them) that process the ammonia and nitrate from the fish and the decompositional bacteria. Both kinds of bacteria will live in your filter, and in the tankwater, but the only ones that will have a beneficial standard of performance will most likely be in concentration in the filter, and not in the tankwater, especially when the filter is likely to be trapping most of the detritus that starts the whole process off.



In short an unfiltered powerhead will only encourage the first group of bacteria, and that means more, not less ammonia. Its far better to have the main filter up to the job in the first place.

The principle might work over a vast area, like a waterfall running into a river, but on the small scale it wont work.

To get rid of ammonia requires aerobic bacterial cultures usually stabilised by a regular supply of food, oxygen and a stable and suitable growing media. You cant really mirror nature in this, and you have to provide an extremely stable set of conditions for bacterial growth with the intention of exceeding natural bacterial levels versus space. This is why new filters generally include media like carbon and sintered glass that have massive surface area , sometimes exceeding the biological processing abilities of a pond more than ten times the size of an aquarium. This is what you do to provide enough bacteria to cope with ammonia in a situation that exceeds the normal levels of pollution , and higher stocking density than commonly found in the wild , ie : your typical fish tank. Floating plants will typically absorb ammonia more efficiently than other kinds of plant, but this wont help with other pollutants, and frankly , you'd need a hell of a lot of them to replace a filter, probably twice as much if not three times the total surface area available in your tank, and thats with severe understocking too.

Basically if the bacteria has nothing to attach itself to, the colony will remain too small to help you.

On a practical note, there is nothing preventing you from using a small filter as an additional powerhead. A small filter like an eheim aquaball with one filter insert and one chamber would give you the result I think you are looking for.

Simple question, complicated answer Hope it helps.

ok thanks thats all (about the ammonia) i needed to know about the subject.



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pnh

over the past three wekks I have been trying every thing to eliminate ammonia from water..other than subecting the water to a biological filter.
aeration, ajitation, boiling, distillation, and corbon filters have all proven worthless. still looking.