Nitrogen has two stable isotopes, 14N and 15N, whose relative abundances in nature are approximately 99.64% and 0.35%, respectively. Stable isotopes have been used as tracers in human nutritional studies for many years. Commercial production of fish involves high levels of feeding. While digestive breakdown of lipids and carbohydrates yields water and carbon dioxide as waste products, digestion of proteins also yields nitrogenous compounds
A number of isotopes have been used frequently to assess body composition, energy expenditure, protein turnover and metabolic studies in general, such as deuterium (2Hydrogen), 18Oxygen, 13Carbon and 15Nitrogen. Nitrogen. Unlike phosphorus, nitrogen occurs most commonly as an extremely stable atmospheric gas, dinitrogen (N2). Dinitrogen gas comprises approximately 78% of our breathable atmosphere and is remarkably unreactive due to the strength of the triple bond.In natural systems and some aquarium systems, nitrate is converted to nitrogen gas by denitrifying bacteria. This conversion from ammonia to nitrite to nitrate to nitrogen gas is known as the nitrogen cycle. Nitrification is a microbial process by which reduced nitrogen compounds (primarily ammonia) are sequentially oxidized to nitrite and nitrate. Ammonia is present in drinking water through either naturally-occurring processes or through ammonia addition during secondary disinfection to form chloramines.