Ammonia in tap water?

[oogie]

Have been out of the hobby a few years and wanted to get back in again, I was always on well water and kept many fish for years without issues and rarely tested water. I am now on town water and though they said there is no chlorine i got some Prime anyway. Problem is there is up to 0.25 Ammonia in the town water and my new tank which should be cycled still has or is slow to process all the Ammonia after a large WC to get rid of the high Nitrate after the cycle. And Prime seems to only detox Ammonia for 24-48 hours.
In the past i used cycled filters/media to start a new tank and added fish most of the time right away and just did a lot of WCs at first. There are some fish i planned to get right away, thinking the cycle was over, that i have wanted a long time and may not be able to get them again or at least not for quite a wile. But if i get them and do even daily WCs am I adding too much Ammonia back into the tank for the fish to handle if the filters are not taking it out quick enough?

 

[duanes]

City tap water in many cases uses chloramine as a disinfectant. Chloramine is produced by adding 1 part ammonia to 5 parts chloramine. This is probably why your water tests at 0.25 ammonia. Most chlorinated systems use a residual of 1.25-1.50 ppm chloramine.
I lived in a city that used chloramine, and used old filter media and substrate to start new tanks, in that way, as long as I stocked gradually, I never had to cycle newly set up tanks.
If you have enough biomedia the trace amount of media should use it up before it becomes dangerous, as long as Prime or some other derchlorinator is applied during water changes.

 

[skjl47]

But if i get them and do even daily WCs am I adding too much Ammonia back into the tank for the fish to handle if the filters are not taking it out quick enough?

Hello; Not trying to be picky and understand you may already know about the relationship of beneficial bacteria (bb) and ammonia. I write because some fish keepers seem to think that it is the power filters remove ammonia and nitrites from the water. In fact an old friend who has been out of the hobby a long while was told that very thing when he bought a new 75 gallon tank recently. I have also read posts on this site saying this sort of thing.

It is the colonies of bb that take up the ammonia and nitrite from the water. These colonies can and will be on many surfaces in an aquarium including, but not limited to, a power filter. These bb colonies can be found in cycled tanks with no power filters at all.

The power filter parts seem likely to have these colonies as there is water flow along them. This flow being constant makes the filter surfaces a good place for the bb.

The balance between the bb and the ammonia is dynamic. Add too many fish at once and it may take a while for the bb population to catch up. The bb populations adjust to the amount of ammonia and nitrites available.

 

[Justin Martin]

My tap reads 1.0-1.5ppm. Prime first two days after wc. An established biofilter will take over after that

 

[Justin Martin]

Though mathematically it does not make sense, a 50% water change adding 1.25 from faucet into 0.0 brings me to .25ppm immediately (hour later, water cycled approx. 5 times). Usually dissipates following day

 

[esoxlucius]

I thought that a good well established BB system would neutralise the ammonia extremely quickly, similar to how prime neutralises chlorine almost instantaneously. So in effect, the ammonia from the tap water added to the tank during a water change should be neutralised before your fish even feel any adverse effects. Is this not correct or does it really take the BB a good few hours to make the ammonia harmless?

 

[skjl47]

I thought that a good well established BB system would neutralise the ammonia extremely quickly,

Is this not correct or does it really take the BB a good few hours to make the ammonia harmless?

hello; The way I picture this is as a dynamic balance. Dynamic in the sense the bb population can increase or decrease fairly quickly. Say you add an additional ammonia source, a new big fish for example, There will be a larger amount of ammonia on a constant basis. The bb population increases in a few hours and if the ammonia level stays the same over time will maintain at the new level.
The same things happens if a large fish is removed. Over time the bb population will decrease due to a reduced amount of needed nutrient. Mt guess is this population number reduction may occur over a bit longer time than the population build up numbers.

A time frame that comes from memory is that a bacterium can reproduce itself in around twenty minutes under ideal conditions. Do not know if this applies to the bb strains we cultivate in our tanks. Anyway they likely exist in the millions in our tanks so the potential can be they could increase their numbers shortly. It will take some time as there likely are some other factors in play as well.

I guess the point being the new ammonia increase during a WC is not a steady thing but something that happens from time to time, depending on the WC schedule. The impact might be less if a WC is done each day but once a week might be too long in between.

Just a thought experiment on my part and not backed up with evidence so I may be wrong about this.

 

[Justin Martin]

I apologize if this has already been said, but BB does not act immediately. Or I should say, it starts acting immediately but is not finished immediately. This is why we introduce fish slowly, so the colonies can multiply accordingly and not be overwhelmed by an influx of ammonia. Not sure if I am answering the question, but if you are adding water with ammonia in it, you will absolutely need to prime for at least the first day, for me it usually ends up being about two days sometimes three depending on the ammonia level and size of my water change