Brine shrimp and ammonia?

Question

We have to do an experiment in my biology class to determine the effect a variable on the hatching of brine shrimp; we can choose any variable we want. My group is going to test the effect of nutrients (mainly nitrogen), and at first we thought we would using plant fertilizer (without any poisons of course). Now I'm considering using ammonia, and I'm wondering if that would be a bad idea because I have to bring it to school. I don't care about the effect it will have on the eggs because, well, it's an experiment, and the whole point is to see what happens. It's not dangerous is it (unless you drink it or something of course)? The odor is pretty localized and won't spread through the whole room, right?

Answer 1

You are going to kill your brine shrimp.  They might hatch, then die after hatching, and a dead baby brine shrimp is mighty small.

Anyways, if your ammonia is household strength, there shouldn't be a problem, as long as you remove the cap only to measure out the stuff, and then pour the stuff into your brine shrimp as quickly as possible.  Have your teacher lock up the ammonia afterward, to prevent mischief from the other students.

It might be more useful to choose light intensity or salt concentration, LOL.

Ammonia isn't a nutrient for animals.  It's a waste product.

Answer 2

Depends on the concentration of it. We used ammonia in lab, however someone screwed up the labels. I saw that there was already one labeled 6M NH3 so I thought there was no way this could be the concentrated ammonia. So I took a whiff... I dropped the flask and fell on my ***. It was maybe 20 seconds before everyone left the room coughing. If it's pretty weak ammonia you shouldn't have this problem.