ammonia in my tap water!!
- Thread starter jellybaby
- Start date
Oh there's ammonia in it alright. 1.5ppm of it. I know cuz you said so.jellybaby;2833910; said:have just tested my tap water and there is 1.5 ammoina in it!!
what now???
that is the exact reading i am getting from my tank so maybe there is no ammoina in there after all???
arhhhh???
Ok, so that's good news. At the very least, you need to treat it with prime or Amquel + before adding the water to your tank. It will still show up on your tests though. It prevents the ammonium ions from forming. You will need to take a base reading from your tap water each time you test your tank.
The best way to treat the water is to set up a water aging tank with aquatic plants or hydroponically with terestrial plants such as pothos. Anytime you can avoid adding chemicals to your tank to fix a problem, it is always better for your fish.
This is probably the resullt of "chloramination" by your water treatment facility. In the procedure, chlorine and ammonia are added to the water and allowed to react, forming chloramine. This is not an ideal situation, but it is easily managed. Like Chompers said, when you dechlorinate your municipal water, use either Prime or Amquel+. Either of these will detoxify the incoming ammonia and tie it up until your biofilter can oxidize it to nitrite. I would suggest that you perhaps increase the dose of either dechlorinating reagent by 25-50%. I would do nothing more than that. As previously stated, most test kits will still indicate the presence of "free ammonia", but it's actually bound and detoxified.
Finally, since you are getting identical readings between your tap and tank, you might want to try retesting with a different kit.
Finally, since you are getting identical readings between your tap and tank, you might want to try retesting with a different kit.
I consistently have .5 - 1.0 from the tap. My OLD aquarium water had 0 ammonia, I guess my bacteria is doing a great job at breaking down the ammonia I add each WC.