Amonia problems
 

It seems I have amonia in my air that is getting into the water I use for top off and water changes. I'm not sure I've ever tested my water change water for amonia before but a week ago I was planning a large water change and decided to test everything. The amonia was at 2mg/L.

I started doing tests to try and eliminate sources. I started with a clean cup of ro/di water and it tested .25 with an api test kit. Not sure if amonia is getting through the ro/di or I am getting a false positive. I left the cup in the room with the aquarium and 24 hours later it tested at 2. I tried it again with the cup on the second floor of the house and the results where the same.

I tried it again with a small rubbermaid container with the lid on and the results showed .25 when I filled the container and .25 both 24 and 48 hours later. I wanted to rule out something in the water that needed exposure to air rather than the air in the house so I left the same container in the garage with no lid for 24 hours. It tested .25. I left it in the room with my aquarium for 1 hour and it tested at 1.

So I think it is safe to say that my battle with algea and nitrates are due to the fact that I am dumping amonia into my tank.

So now the question is, how do I prevent this? I tried a container in the one bathroom with the door closed hoping the air would be better as it has no vent. I had 1 mg/L in my one gallon top off container after 24 hours. I think that is better than not being in the room but not good enough.

Can I mix the salt with a lid on the pail? If not can I mix it in the garage for 24 hours then cover it and heat it indoors? I don't really want to try and heat it in the garage now that winter is almost here.

Bad test kit? Have you tried another test kit.?

yes

the human nose can smell ppb ammonia, can you smell it in your house?
Also ammonia is lighter than air so it would be concentrating in the higher areas.

Ammonia can be smelt from the litter box in the basement if it's not kept clean. I assume that is where it is coming from. I don't know a lot about it but I would think the concentration would have to be a lot higher to smell than would be needed to show up in water.

I remember seeing a post and something about litter boxes and tanks sometime ago on canreef maybe do a quick search.. I can't remember what it was about though.

I work with ammonia and the human nose can smell it when concentrations cannot be detected with a ppm meter. Ammonia is readily adsorbed by water but I do not think it has an affinity with water as salt does so unless your litter box is right beside your storage container I would be skeptical that it is the cause, nitrates are a whole other animal that are not exported easily with conventional means and I hear of tanks with high nitrates that don't have a hair algae problem, I think po4 starts HA and then no3 can feed it, high nitrates need to be reduced with denitrators or WC's and then can be managed with pellet reactors and other forms of carbon dosing.

I can appreciate the complexity of of the hair algea problem and nitrate problem. But if I am doing water changes with amonia levels between 1 and 4 mg/L then the end result of that amonia is going to be nitrates. Essentially my bioload is overloaded without adding fish.

For what it is worth I don't smell amonia on the top floor of the house and after 24 hours a cup of ro/di water tests at 1. If its not coming from the litter box then where else would it be coming from?

I guess all that really matters is how can I stop the amonia from getting into my water change water? The garage is the only spot I have found where uncovered water does not increase in amonia but it is going to be too cold.

Is there an air purifier that removes ammonia? I am also wondering about the skimmer intake sucking ammonia into the aquarium. I was thinking about routing the intake line to pull in outside air but am wondering if that would have an impact on the temperature of the tank. Although that might actually mean my chiller won't have to run as often.

I don't know of purifiers other than the cartridges for a respirator but I think carbon should work, I you draw your skimmer air through some carbon in a simple reactor per say.