Ammonia in well water

[Vampire fish]

My aquarium water comes from my well. It comes out alkaline. My tanks water ammonia 0 nitrite near 0 nitrate between 80-160. My more sensitive fish dont do so well. I.E. tinfoil barb, datnoid, peacock bass. Ammonia comes out of my well water at 1.0 and 4.0 on API scale. This excerpt below I took from someone with a similar issue issue I have. The difference is I dont think I have chloramine in my well water only solar salt to softener. Anyway solution. Thanks

I need to bring this thred back to life. I have the same problem, my tank is cycled completetly 0.00 ammonia and nitrite's but my nitrates are 120. My tap water also has 1.0ppm ammonia in it cause of the chloramine.

I'm doing water changes everyday but I'm concerned that doing these water changes to remove my nitrates isj ust adding more nitrates back in the water by the ammonia. Ammonia turns into nitrites then nitrates.. So I'm not solving this problem at all..

I don't know what to do because there is no way I'm using bottled water it will be to expensive. Prime doesn't solve this problem either, cause I need to remove the nitrates not "detoxify" ammonia and chloramine.

 

[Vampire fish]

I have not tried any primers or chemicals let me know what I should try.

 

[Ruturaj]

Removing nitrates are hard, you can try plants in sump. Submersed plants prefer ammonia and co2 becomes limiting factor.

I think low pH might be an issue, most probably your well water lacks buffering capability.

 

[Rocksor]

You need to figure out how much toxic ammonia is in your well water. The API tests total ammonia, not just toxic ammonia. Did you test the water that didn’t go through the water softener?

Use this website to calculate toxic ammonia http://home.eng.iastate.edu/~jea/w3-research/free-ammonia/nh3.html Enter in the API ammonia value in the top line.

if there is toxic ammonia, put well water in a brute trashcan and filter water with ammonia chips for hours to a day. The chips will remove the ammonia.

also use water that doesn’t go through the water softener.

 

[Vampire fish]

You need to figure out how much toxic ammonia is in your well water. The API tests total ammonia, not just toxic ammonia. Did you test the water that didn’t go through the water softener?

Use this website to calculate toxic ammonia http://home.eng.iastate.edu/~jea/w3-research/free-ammonia/nh3.html Enter in the API ammonia value in the top line.

if there is toxic ammonia, put well water in a brute trashcan and filter water with ammonia chips for hours to a day. The chips will remove the ammonia.

also use water that doesn’t go through the water softener.

My well water does use solar salt water softener and while most of my hardy fish do fine the most sensitive including datnoid go into shock during large water changes (saved by being thrown into another tank) because so much ammonia is introduced into the tank. I will also let you know the well water is near 0 nitrates. The armatus another sensitive fish to my well water I might add I solved this problem years ago having him in a single specimen smaller tank and used rain water with some aquarium water ph reducer.
Im going to find ammonia chips and get these fish into a specific tank. I might also try muriatic acid in the same process as ammonia chips and see how they do I just cant dump any unprepared water into these fishes tanks because they are too sensitive unlike my cichlids.

 

[Vampire fish]

Removing nitrates are hard, you can try plants in sump. Submersed plants prefer ammonia and co2 becomes limiting factor.

I think low pH might be an issue, most probably your well water lacks buffering capability.

I might also try muriatic acid in the same process as ammonia chips and see how they do. Since my other fish do fine with high nitrates maybe it is the not even really the high pH but the high well water mineral content that causes them to be a less then happy.

 

[Vampire fish]

The salt was low in the well maybe it just needs to be refilled. Does the morten salt remove ammonia?

 

[thebiggerthebetter]

My aquarium water comes from my well. It comes out alkaline. My tanks water ammonia 0 nitrite near 0 nitrate between 80-160. My more sensitive fish dont do so well. I.E. tinfoil barb, datnoid, peacock bass. Ammonia comes out of my well water at 1.0 and 4.0 on API scale. This excerpt below I took from someone with a similar issue issue I have. The difference is I dont think I have chloramine in my well water only solar salt to softener. Anyway solution. Thanks

I need to bring this thred back to life. I have the same problem, my tank is cycled completetly 0.00 ammonia and nitrite's but my nitrates are 120. My tap water also has 1.0ppm ammonia in it cause of the chloramine.

I'm doing water changes everyday but I'm concerned that doing these water changes to remove my nitrates isj ust adding more nitrates back in the water by the ammonia. Ammonia turns into nitrites then nitrates.. So I'm not solving this problem at all..

I don't know what to do because there is no way I'm using bottled water it will be to expensive. Prime doesn't solve this problem either, cause I need to remove the nitrates not "detoxify" ammonia and chloramine.

My well water does use solar salt water softener and while most of my hardy fish do fine the most sensitive including datnoid go into shock during large water changes (saved by being thrown into another tank) because so much ammonia is introduced into the tank. I will also let you know the well water is near 0 nitrates. The armatus another sensitive fish to my well water I might add I solved this problem years ago having him in a single specimen smaller tank and used rain water with some aquarium water ph reducer.
Im going to find ammonia chips and get these fish into a specific tank. I might also try muriatic acid in the same process as ammonia chips and see how they do I just cant dump any unprepared water into these fishes tanks because they are too sensitive unlike my cichlids.

What is the pH? Please give the number. For the raw well water, after softener, and for the tank water.

What the KH and GH of the well water and for the water after softener?

What's the TDS of the well water?

The nitrate reading of 80-160 ppm, although it is a relative reading, not absolute, but still too high for an average reported. Usually peers keep their (relative) nitrate reading by an API test tube liquid test around 20 ppm or less.

What does it mean "Ammonia comes out of my well water at 1.0 and 4.0 on API scale"?

The excerpt doesn't make sense to me. Replacing water containing (relatively) 120 ppm of nitrate with water having 1 ppm ammonia, read eventually nitrate, should solve the problem that person was facing.

We need to figure out why your fish get shocked by a WC, that is what parameter(s) different in the incoming water versus tank water.

The ammonia chips approach may be the way to go if they are very affordable and easy to work with. Or an RO (see below).

I'd not advise to play with pH.

***

My water (I am in FL as you are) also comes from well, it is light brackish, 1200-1400 ppm, very hard - 500-600 ppm of the TDS is hardness, the rest is salinity, pH is 7.2-7.6, it also contains 0.25-0.5 ppm ammonia, it has a yellow tinge due to tannins. I run RO filtration and then add back 15% of the raw well water to the RO water and use it for all our tanks.

 

[Vampire fish]

What is the pH? Please give the number. For the raw well water, after softener, and for the tank water.

What the KH and GH of the well water and for the water after softener?

What's the TDS of the well water?

The nitrate reading of 80-160 ppm, although it is a relative reading, not absolute, but still too high for an average reported. Usually peers keep their (relative) nitrate reading by an API test tube liquid test around 20 ppm or less.

What does it mean "Ammonia comes out of my well water at 1.0 and 4.0 on API scale"?

The excerpt doesn't make sense to me. Replacing water containing (relatively) 120 ppm of nitrate with water having 1 ppm ammonia, read eventually nitrate, should solve the problem that person was facing.

We need to figure out why your fish get shocked by a WC, that is what parameter(s) different in the incoming water versus tank water.

The ammonia chips approach may be the way to go if they are very affordable and easy to work with. Or an RO (see below).

I'd not advise to play with pH.

***

My water (I am in FL as you are) also comes from well, it is light brackish, 1200-1400 ppm, very hard - 500-600 ppm of the TDS is hardness, the rest is salinity, pH is 7.2-7.6, it also contains 0.25-0.5 ppm ammonia, it has a yellow tinge due to tannins. I run RO filtration and then add back 15% of the raw well water to the RO water and use it for all our tanks. I always assumed it was very hard water as is the norm in florida.

the water in my tank has 0 ammonia the water coming from my well is 3. Tank water ph is 8.0 ph from well is same as yours. Nitrite 0 in tank and well. Nitrate is 140 in tank near 0 from well. I have no idea the hardness.
I think the datnoid was shocked by ammonia when it went from 0 to 3 or higher during a 50 % water change in a 220 gallon tank. This isnt the first time this has happened to me with similarly sensitive fish. Im still researching and testing the issue. Im just expressing my thoughts.

 

[Vampire fish]

The excerpt doesn't make sense to me. Replacing water containing (relatively) 120 ppm of nitrate with water having 1 ppm ammonia, read eventually nitrate, should solve the problem that person was facing.

I think this is my solution. But i cant do large water changes because I dump in too much ammonia at once. The water coming from my well is over 3.0 ppm.

I have tested my ammonia and nitrates again 6 hours after the water change and the nitrate level is cut in half almost from 150 range to 40 the ammonia is 1.0. The ammonia was 0 before the water change immediately after water change rose to 3 or more. I did this when my datnoid freaked out and I threw him into the other tank Thank god he is alive.