Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Gary,
Dave Donley of our very own forum cycled up with bottled ammonia. He did have to work a bit to find it without additional soaps.

As long as your just talking about using the vapor injected into some water should be easy enough to do Steve. I wonder if a small aquarium air pump would work for that. Hold the intake over say a drained bucket from an oil pot, then let it discharge into a bottle of water thus saturating the water with NH3.
I wouldn't be trying to mix liquid NH3 with water as it tends to react quite violently LOL.
Its a pity all the air con and fridges aint ammonia based!

Nah man, no way

was thinking of saturating water via bubbled vapur and then cutting it down again as i believe a saturated solution can have quite a high vapour pressure in a closed bottle!

Pipe dreams anyway, i can't see myself justifying a bottle of NH3 and gauges to suit unless i build one of those solar ice makers.

BTW you seem to have been in the trade, heres a dumb question for ya!

Do ammonia bottles have liquid or vapour take off valves? or both?

Yep, I cycled up with household ammonia (it's diluted). It took awhile to find some without the foaming action from added detergents but it did happen. Someone mentioned getting some from a pharmacist?

I have never seen a bottle, we get it in a truck load then pump it into the high pressure receiver.
Good question though if I had to guess Id say vapor, Ill see if I can find out for sure.
Current job site runs 12 screw compressors, 5 for the low side and 7 for the high.
I have been thinking about the icy ball for a few years now. Neat as Hell.
Yes a saturated solution would be bad in a sealed bottle or at least prone to popping the lid. When we do oil samples we have to let them vent off a bit before sealing it for the mail, takes a couple of days.

I'll change my guess to liquid for the take off valve Steve, pulling vapor alone would freeze everything up. Nh3 at 0psi is -28f. Id emagine a frozen valve set if just pulling vapor.
Can you buy the stuff without a cert of some sort. Think its a meth ingredient so I don't think one could just buy a bottle of it here.

The old ones only had vapor we used to turn them upside down to do the job quicker

GF, soon as you said pump it into the HP reciever i knew it was liquid

As far as i know no cert, and probably less "to-do" than CFC or HCFC refrigerants!

Maybe one day i will have the experience of working on NH3 industrial, chalk and cheese to other things!

Anyway, i have emailed a lab supply place for reagent grade 28% solution 2.5L. found two places, but one place wanted $65 for shipping

F&F, yep, the upside down bottle trick

Chuckle.. never thought of fliping the bottle. Easy fix.
Sheez $65? Is it that heavy or does it come from china?

Nah - they fly the football team to Steve's place, give em a carton of beer and within hours the ammonia is deliverred to his letterbox

interstate! ~800kms

Hi Steve,

Did you have any luck procuring 28% ammonia?

I am thinking of cycling my system with 25% pure ammonia in water soloution. I can get it from Bayside chemicls. Is it dangerous to pour it straight into water? It comes in 500ml or 2.5 lt bottles. How much do we need to cycle a system with 2500 lt fish tanks and 4500 lt sump with 5000 lts of Growbeds?

AP

AP

aussie, it was so long ago i looked into this (it seems like it anyway)

i WOULD NOT just pour it all in


do it this way. your 25% solution will be 250,000ppm

you want about 2 ppm in your water

so, 1ml (of 100%) in 1000l = 1ppm

2ml in 1000L = 2ppm

Time by four because you have 25%

give you 8ml of 25% ammonia per 1000L to dose to 2ppm

if you have 7000L water then thats 8ml X 7 = 56ml

just shy of two standard shot glasses.

So the 500ml bottle will be enough for 10 applications fro 0ppm to 2 ppm

or 20 applications from 1ppm to 2ppm.

what you want to do is dose to 2ppm then when it drops to 1ppm re-dose it to 2ppm.

when it remove the complete 2ppm over 24 hrs then its all cycled.

Can some one else check my math before Aussie doses, please

its mathS here in oz nigger we're taking it back