Tank Still Not Cycled

[Liv15]

I have had my tank over a year now and there is constantly an ammonia level. I vacuum the gravel and squeeze the filter in a jug of tank water once or twice when I do a water change. I used to do water changes once a week but in the last about 6 months or so I have been changing the every month or 2. The reason why I stopped changing the water as often is because my tap water has ammonia in it. When I do change the water I always use dechlorinater and a product that has microorganisms in it to get rid of ammonia. My tap water also stinks like bleach lately so it must have loads of chlorine in it.
Why is there ammonia in my tank all the time, it is 48 litre tank with live plants, driftwood, and has 3 small fish and (as of Wednesday) 2 bamboo shrimp?

 

[fluttermoth]

What test kit are you using, Liv?
 
What are the exact levels of ammonia you're seeing, in your tank and in the tap water?

 

[AshleyNZ]

 I agree that the ammonia reading  could befrom your tap water

 

[BiggTexx]

Sounds as if your water is being treated with chloramine, not chlorine and chloramine is a chlorine-ammonia bond, which needs to be treated differently.  I would suggest trying a product called Amquel, or even the Tetra AquaSafe.
 
Fill a bucket with tap water, test and record readings. Treat with Amquel (or AquaSafe) and let sit overnight.  Then test and check your readings the next day.

 

[Liv15]

Here's a pic of the tank water test. I'm using test strips and they're really rubbish cause you can't even see the colours properly, I will buy a proper kit when I get paid. I should add that after I changed the water on Sunday the ammonia was 0 but on Wednesday it went up a lot! and now there's still an ammonia level but not as much, maybe adding the shrimp caused the ammonia spike? I think I need to test it more regularly to know what's going on.