Ammonia in my tap water

[IrnGynt]

I've been using R/O water, but the GH/kH parameters of my tap water are better for my Flowerhorn. Problem is, Ammonia is .5 ppm. Seems like it would defeat the purpose of water changes using water from my tap going from 0 ppm to .5 ppm.

I'd really like to start using my tap water. Advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[superleggera123]

use prime, it also removes ammonia from water

 

[Toby_H]

Try frequent small water changes with tap water...

 

[justonemoretank]

I also have ammonia in my tap water. I find that by the next day, my biological filter (I run plenty!) has taken care of it. My fish aren't affected that I can see. I wouldn't worry about doing water changes this way, though I don't do any larger than 30%, so I can't speak for doing larger ones than that.

 

[IrnGynt]

After doing a little research, looks like Prime detoxifies the Ammonia. Not exactly sure what that means. Anyone know how it goes about detoxifying ammonia?

 

[andyjs]

After doing a little research, looks like Prime detoxifies the Ammonia. Not exactly sure what that means. Anyone know how it goes about detoxifying ammonia?

I don't know the actual chemistry of it, but it makes it less toxic so that it doesn't hurt the fish, but the bacteria can still metabolize it

 

[nfored]

The Ammonia is likely from chloramines my tap water is 1ppm Ammonia, this was a Bia Bia during the cycle, because it would cause a mini 2 or 3 day cycle at first.. I think prime converts it to Ammonium, i think it does this by binding at the molecule level.

 

[Toby_H]

Prime turns ammonia into less toxic ammonium... this converstion lasts abotu 24 hours... if the ammonium is not consumed by the biological filtration in that time it will have converted back to ammonia...