Ammonia In My Tap Water?

Snake42490

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well.. for whatever reason tonight i tested my tap water... to my surprise.. its testing at 1 ppm for ammonia?? whats up with that.. i was thinking maybe it had something to do with the huge storm we had two nights ago.. but my guess is its happened between the past 4 days because i just did a water change on the tanks and all are testing 0 ppm.. how should i go about this? i know for a fact that it used to be at 0.
 
Maybe it has to do with the pipes, the storm... anything, really. The water can change quite easily. I'd wait it out. There might be a problem with your test kit as well.
 
i was going to say it was the test kit also, but you beet me to it.
 
runoff, bad test kit, call your local water way and ask.
 
Well, firstly, if the water change was 4 days ago, I would expect your tanks to read 0 ammonia, because that is what the filter bacteria is supposed to do. The bacteria got more food than they normally do, but the colony size grew and took care of that extra ammonia, probably pretty fast. If you did a water change with 1 ppm ammonia water, even if it was a 50% change, I'd bet that your tank would read 0 ammonia in a matter of hours, no more than 8 or so. All that assumes the tank was fully cycled before the water change, of course.

Now, I'd keep an eye on the ammonia levels in your drinking water for a while. When there is a lot of rain/flooding, the water company does add extra chlorination to help kill more bugs than usual -- and since most use clhoramines, they may have accidentally used a little too much ammonia compared to the chlorine. The other possibility is that Iowa is pretty agricultural area and ammonia is a common ingredient in fertilizers, so the run off from the fields may be the source of that extra ammonia.

Either way, you do want to monitor the levels because you really shouldn't be drinking ammonia in any concentration. For a few days, a low concentration is okay -- your body can metabolize it into something harmless. But, long-term exposure can have heath repercussions -- softened bones for example. Your water company will want to know about this, if it doesn't clear up in a short time. Sometimes it is caused by more serious issues, like leaks in the pipes or something like that.

Your fish are actually probably just fine using that water -- again, the filter converts it pretty quickly really.

All that said, if you are going to be in the neighborhood, I would take a sample to your LFS and have then test the water, too, just to make sure that your test kit is still accurate.
 
Bignose; If there was a recent bad storm, with the possibility of water contamination, there is a good chance they raised the chloramine level. From our previous discussions about the bacteria that are able to split the chlorine/ammonia bond, do you think there bacteria may be doing just that, but are overwelmed by the ammonia, and they haven't had a chance to convert it to nitrite-nitrate?

Just a thought.
 
I would suspect that runoff from the corn fields are more likely the source of the ammonia. I don't think that the bacteria would cut the chlorine-ammonia bond just to leave the ammonia alone -- the bacteria would only be interested in cutting the bond in order to keep the ammonia. Otherwise they are just wasting energy cutting bonds for no apparent reason. I wouldn't completely rule it out, but I don't think it is likely. The next most likely occurrence, I would think, is that the water company tried to put a lot of extra chloramine in the water and isn't mixing it quite right. It is tough to know without actually being at the water company.
 
well with that being said haha.. the local store got the same thing as well.. actually there was only around .5 mine showed 1 ppm... all 3 tanks are fine.. i will go check the tap water again and keep you guys up to date.. this is wacked .... haha and i have been drinking water so at least i will be safe... might be a good idea to tell my parents lol.
 

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