The amount of ammonia dead fish and inverts put out question?

[queloque]

Is it just a matter of size that determines the amount of ammonia a dead fish or invert puts out if you can't find the thing in your tank or hope that your crabs will get to it?

 

So will a dead turbo snail put out the same amount of ammonia that lets say a clown of the same size will put out or are their chemistries different?

 

And if you have lets say a dead fish that is 3 inches long and big, how many days of ammonia release do they produce if untouched by critters. How long will it take for it to decompose bringing the water back to normal through its cycle process.

 

Clearly there is a science to the madness. I could look it up I guess but would like to hear from you guys for discussion sakes.

[treesprite]

It also depends on water volumn as to how significant an impact the ammonia would have on the tank & how long it would take for the water chemistry to sort itself out.

 

I would not worry about a snail or a small fish in say 100g of water. A fish will be food fast and most of the ammonia will come from the waste of whatever eats it. A snail on the other hand, is in a shell and can't so easily be eaten, therefore is more likely to decompose in the tank. The question then becomes, is the amount of ammonia from a decomposing body higher or the same as the ammonia produced by the waste of animals that consume the dead body if said dead body is actually consumed. I would also be more concerned about a body I couldn't see in teh open, because that could indicate that it died where cleanup critters couldn't easily get to it, as in the case of the snail.

[Jon Lazar]

The short answer:

Everyone has a different amount of bacteria in their tank, so everyones' tank is very different.

 

The long answer:

The population of ammonia-eating bacteria in one's tank rises and falls with the amount of food (ammonia) in the tank. Every tank is constantly generating large amounts of ammonia, but there is usually enough bacteria to eat it just as fast as it's being made. In reality, every tank is constantly cycling as the bacteria population tries to establish equilibrium with the amount of ammonia in the water. Normally the cycles are small enough that you don't detect them.

 

A good example of this is a moderate sized tank which is heaily stocked and heavily fed, but shows no ammonia. The fish are actually creating tons of it between their respiration and their poop, but all the ammonia is immediately consumed by the large bacterial population. If one fish were to die, the amount of ammonia released is dwarfed by the total ammonia released by the tank, and percentage-wise there's virtually no increase.

 

The opposite example is of a tank with few fish which is sparely fed. Because the tank produces little ammonia, there are much fewer bacteria. So when a fish dies and produces the same amount of ammonia as before, there are far fewer bacteria to eat it and the overall level rises to the point where it can become a problem.

 

These are simplified examples, because they don't account for the difficulty in measuring ammonia production based on "high" levels of stocking or feeding. They also don't account for skimming, which can remove organics before they decompose. Nor do they account for scavengers who eat the carcass, which can either speed or slow the release of ammonia.

 

Jon