how to detoxify ammonia

[CT_]

An older previous thread got me thinking, and another post reminded me to write this up here:

 

I was walking through the LFS and found an ammonia and nitrite detoxifying product.  I looked at the label and to my surprise I found an ingredients list. 

It listed Sodium Hydroxymethanesulfonate as its only active ingredient.  I did some digging and I found one conference paper (quality of the paper writing itself is low imo but the science seems okay)[1] and one journal paper[2].

It seems to work, in a dose dependent way, at reducing high levels of ammonia.  I couldn't find any references to nitrite, so maybe it also contains a -cl salt like nacl, which would make nitrite less toxic, but that's speculation.

 

The TL;DR summary and my interpretation of the papers is:

The first paper didn't assay its efficacy after 30min so I'd assume at low ammonia levels (<1ppm) it still works but slowly (this is generally how typical chemical reaction kinetics works).   The second paper showed less ammonia in treated conditions and increased survival rate of rotifers. 

the first paper gives this mechanism for neutralization:

NH3 + HOCH2SO3Na → H2NCH2SO3Na + H2O

which to me says that it works on unionized ammonia and therefore would work faster at higher ph (where ammonia is more dangerous), but I'm no chemist.

 

[1]: full text link

[2]: https://doi.org/10.1577/A05-063.1, PDF link

[Wrencher_Scott]

My question is this:

#1 Why is it important to detoxify ammonia? At the low levels we ever see temporally (should be that way, see #2) it won't hurt/kill the fish.

#2 If you have ammonia the root cause of the ammonia is the problem, not the ammonia.

 

[Widgets]

On 3/29/2022 at 2:45 PM, Wrencher_Scott said:

My question is this:

#1 Why is it important to detoxify ammonia? At the low levels we ever see temporally (should be that way, see #2) it won't hurt/kill the fish.

#2 If you have ammonia the root cause of the ammonia is the problem, not the ammonia.

There are times where the cycle crashes and we need help to cycle the tank with fish in the tank. Maybe it is a fish illness being treated with antibiotics, or a dead snail spiking the Ammonia.  We may know the cause, but need time to work the solution.

[CT_]

On 3/29/2022 at 11:45 AM, Wrencher_Scott said:

My question is this:

#1 Why is it important to detoxify ammonia? At the low levels we ever see temporally (should be that way, see #2) it won't hurt/kill the fish.

#2 If you have ammonia the root cause of the ammonia is the problem, not the ammonia.

Great points!!  I think as @Widgets articulated, it's nice to have a safety net.  generally I think there's no need to detoxify. 

 

The only case I can think of is if your water has a lot of chloramine and or ammonia and comes out with a high pH.  There are of course other mitigation strategies, RO, magic(to me) resins, small water changes, long aging, etc etc.

 

EDIT:  I also just want to reiterate that my post is really just meant to share some information.  Before I found this I didn't know of safe ways to oxidize or otherwise remove ammonia besides enzymes in microbes.

Edited March 29, 2022 by CT_

[AndreaW]

I've read articles stating that ammonia detoxifiers cannot be proven to be effective. However, I tend to look at it this way: If it's not harming, and there's a possible benefit, then why not use it for instances where you want to do your best to protect your pets? I won't use it in place of other corrections, but use it in conjunction with them (ie: water changes), and I feel comfortable that I'm doing more good than harm.

It's the same with bottled bacteria. I can't prove it helps cycle a new aquarium any faster, but if there's a possibility that it could help, and there's no harm, then I will go ahead and use it to provide the best environment for my fish possible.

Those are my thoughts, for what it's worth. 

[Widgets]

Back in the days of yore, I had several 5g water bottles that I would use for water changes. After I emptied the bottles into my tank I would fill them with tap water and let them off gas waiting for the next water change.

Now that my community has reduced the amount of chlorine used to sanitize the tap water (leaving the spent chlorine as chloramines instead of superchlorinating to burn them off), I have to do something to deal with the chloramines myself. I probably would never have started using water conditioners had it not been for the chloramines.

[Wrencher_Scott]

On 3/29/2022 at 3:37 PM, AndreaW said:

I've read articles stating that ammonia detoxifiers cannot be proven to be effective. However, I tend to look at it this way: If it's not harming, and there's a possible benefit, then why not use it for instances where you want to do your best to protect your pets? I won't use it in place of other corrections, but use it in conjunction with them (ie: water changes), and I feel comfortable that I'm doing more good than harm.

It's the same with bottled bacteria. I can't prove it helps cycle a new aquarium any faster, but if there's a possibility that it could help, and there's no harm, then I will go ahead and use it to provide the best environment for my fish possible.

Those are my thoughts, for what it's worth. 

I guess in this case do we really know there is no harm? (besides the dent in your wallet)

[Wrencher_Scott]

On 3/29/2022 at 12:57 PM, CT_ said:

Great points!!  I think as @Widgets articulated, it's nice to have a safety net.  generally I think there's no need to detoxify. 

 

The only case I can think of is if your water has a lot of chloramine and or ammonia and comes out with a high pH.  There are of course other mitigation strategies, RO, magic(to me) resins, small water changes, long aging, etc etc.

 

EDIT:  I also just want to reiterate that my post is really just meant to share some information.  Before I found this I didn't know of safe ways to oxidize or otherwise remove ammonia besides enzymes in microbes.

Say you have lots of chloramine or even ammonia, is it really enough to harm the fish? I'm thinking not as long as you have lots of bio filtration to handle the ammonia fairly quickly. 

I really don't know for sure. One can find research how much ammonia can harm a fish at a certain pH but I've never had to deal with this. I'm guessing people probably freak out if they see a tiny amount of ammonia then run out to Petco to buy something to "fix" it. Then they use the stuff, it may or may not work (probably not) but the filter works for sure.....You get the idea I think. 🙂

[CT_]

It's hard because every species reacts different and like you say ph makes a big difference.

 

It would be nice to have studies on every common fish or even a few.  Too much is anecdotal.  But at least we know these products do work for high ammonia now.

Edited March 30, 2022 by CT_

[HH Morant]

First, I don't believe there is anything you can pour in your aquarium that detoxifies ammonia or nitrites, temporarily or otherwise.

Here is what the chemist who writes at aquariumscience.org says about hydroxymethane-sulfonate (and hydroxymethane-sulfinate) [spoiler - they don't detoxify ammonia]:

Sodium Hydroxymethanesulfonate

Another chemical which is claimed to be able to remove chlorine AND to safely neutralize the ammonia from chloramine is sodium hydroxymethanesulfinate (SO3) (the SO3 is important, it is a sulfinate, NOT a sulfonate). This is used in the products Tetra AquaSafe Plus, Kordon AmQuel, Kordon AmQuel plus, API Aqua-Essentials, ClorAm-X, Fritz A.C.C.R. and Hikari Aquarium Solutions Ultimate. Sodium hydroxymethanesulfinate (SO3) does remove chlorine via the equation:

The sodium hydroxymethanesulfinate (SO3) reduces the chlorine gas to chloride, forming sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate (SO4). This is just the good old sulfite to sulfate of ALL conditioners.

...* As a chemist, neither sodium hydroxymethanesulfinate (SO3) or sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate (SO4) simply do NOT do anything to ammonia, temporary or otherwise. Per some patents these chemicals supposedly safely neutralizes ammonia to form harmless aminomethylsulfinate (SO3) or aminomethylsulfonate (SO4). This “fact” is stated in forum after forum.

The reaction is supposedly:

This looks all well and good to most people. But to a chemist this is off, way off (I’m a  degreed professional chemist!). The C-N bond is a much higher energy bond than the C-O bond. Thus, this equation is simply bogus. It doesn’t occur except at very high temperatures and very high pressures in non-aqueous environments using metal-based catalysts.

Note there is a HUGE amount of bogus chemical names various patents use for this chemistry (like “glyoxal.2NaHSO3“). And a huge number of made up chemical equations. They are ALL bogus.

The patent for this compound’s use in aquariums dates to 1988 (EP patent EP0278515A2, Günter Ritter, “Chloramine Removing Means” assigned to Tetra [technically Baensch Tetra Werke its German division]).  It makes interesting fictional reading. In the 1980’s the patent law was revised to allow a person to patent the impossible. This patent appears to be a classic case of just such an occurrence.

And in case you do not believe that patents can be obtained for just about ANYTHING, here is a patent for a Warp Drive Machine: United States Patent 20200130870

The European patent for ChlorAm-X is even more interesting. The equation in this patent is:

Heh! I can’t make this stuff up! Question marks! In a patent no less! This patent then has a whole series of completely bogus, made up tests where the product neutralized ammonia. I won’t bother to insult your intelligence by refuting each test.

As a professional degreed chemist with 43 patents let me make this very clear, neither sodium hydroxymethanesulfinate (SO3) nor sodium hydroxymethanesulfonate (SO4) detoxify ammonia in any form, that claim is just marketing hype. And the testing above confirms that.

* HH Morant deleted a statement which could have hurt the feelings of some pet product manufacturers. You are encouraged to read the whole thing. The description of the testing is not included here.

[Wrencher_Scott]

On 3/29/2022 at 8:37 PM, CT_ said:

It's hard because every species reacts different and like you say ph makes a big difference.

 

It would be nice to have studies on every common fish or even a few.  Too much is anecdotal.  But at least we know these products do work for high ammonia now.

Publication #FA16, “Ammonia in Aquatic Systems”, Ruth Francis-Floyd