Unexplained ammonia?

[Loose tenticle]

About 2 weeks ago i started a 57 gallon rimless tank with the water from my older 30 gallon rimless which was running about 1 year and a half, along with the live rock. I also had some dry rock laying around so i decided to cure it in a rubbermaid container before adding it in. About a week ago i upped the sump to a proflex model 3. The spare live rocks where curing about a week soni thought what the heck the tank is cycling anyway so i put it in to the display tank. Fluxuating ammonia was to be expected in the tank. But for some ofd reason i was detecting ammonia in my R/O water??? Yesterday i added some pads that claim to remove or break down ammonia, and a fee hours later tested yhe water and the ammonia levels wento down, any one have words of wisdom?

 

[edd]

freshly mixed salt water will have some amo. not sure about ro.

 

[Loose tenticle]

Edd, i had mixed the water with some red sea coral pro salt had it stirring with a mag5 for about a day, could it be the container?

 

[edd]

i checked my fresh salt mix a while ago and was surprised to detect amo.
so i googled it and read that it is normal to find low amo readings. i don't remember the reasoning, but I'm not concerned with it.

 

[edd]

i mixed a fresh batch of instant ocean last night for a water change today.
i just checked amo. came up .50ppm

 

[marrone]

I would think that there are trace elements in the salt that are different then say straight ammonia but do come up as ammonia readings on our tests. The same can be said for say copper, which is a trace element and is listed in some salts.

 

[Loose tenticle]

Let me see if understand thos correctly, some trace elements are going to to come up as ammonia, therefore making test kits innacurate?

 

[marrone]

I don't have a bucket of Tropic Marin but they use to list the trace elements that were in the salt on the bucket, and things like Copper and such were listed.

 

[Dan_P]

freshly mixed salt water will have some amo. not sure about ro.

Most salt mixtures contain ammonia which might come in as an ammonium salt impurity. Here is a an article on salt mixes.

http://web.archive.org/web/20001215...om/fish2/aqfm/1999/mar/features/1/default.asp