Ammonia Is 1.0 In My Tank... And In The Tap Water! What Now?

[cryslea]

Background
Skip this part if you saw my other thread.

I did a 3 or 4 month fishless cycle for my 20 gallon tank. Added 7 harlequin rasboras and 6 neons, monitored water stats daily, ammonia never got over .25. It's been sitting at 0 ammonia for a couple weeks. Did a water change about a week ago. Yesterday, my tank water looked cloudy, and the ammonia tested at 2-4! Did several big water changes. Got down to 1.0. I have no idea why my ammonia spiked so much. The test had been fine the night before. Nobody's dead. I didn't do anything dumb with my filters (didn't change it, didn't rinse it in tap water, etc.). I didn't dump any cleaning chemicals in the tank. The fish all look fine, swimming normal, etc. Anyway...

Today's Question
Okay, so today the water in the tank is testing at 1.0 for ammonia. My tap water is testing at 1.0 also. I thought my test kit might have gone bad, so I took samples of both my tank water and my tap water to the LFS. Tested at 1.0 for both there, too. I obviously can't do water changes to get the ammonia level down, and I need to wait for my bacteria to catch up and process it. I've been adding Prime and/or Ammo-lock every 12 hours or so.

1. Can I do anything else to help with this? I haven't seen any of those bacteria-in-a-bottle type products around. Definitely not the kind that comes refrigerated.

2. How often should I add Prime and/or Ammo-lock?

Thanks!!

 

[OldMan47]

I use prime but have not used ammolock. Once you have dosed with prime, you need not dose again. The prime will lock up the ammonia in a less harmful form until your bacteria can deal with it. As you said, water changes will not get rid of the ammonia unless it is over 1 ppm. I have the same problem with tap water that tests high in ammonia. I have found that by using the prime for water changes and making the changes small, the levels in the tank never get very high and the bacteria can take care of it quickly. You do not want to create a chemical build up of prime or any other chemical.

 

[rdd1952]

You've just got a bad situation with your tap water. Keep using the Ammo-lock or Prime. As mentioned, it will detoxify the ammonia so that it won't harm your fish. Since your tank is cycled, the bacteria should take care of it. As mentioned, you probably don't need to add it except when you do a water change or if you happen to see another spike. I'm not certain what amount of ammonia Prime is supposed to work on but according to API, a single dose of Ammo-Lock will lock up to 3 ppm of ammonia. If the level happens to be higher than that, you have to double dose. I would also contact the water department to make sure they know that there is ammonia in the water supply. Could be a problem they aren't aware of.

 

[Mikaila31]

Prime will remove .8ppm of ammonia, so you should dose a little extra. Also if I remember correctly, you are by Aqualand. So I suggest trying to get some mature media from them if you want too, I don't know how much of a difference it will make. They wouldn't sell me any last time I asked, but I asked a different employee than I normally do. So who knows , that one guy always sold it to me. Also you could complain to the water company, I don't think a ammonia reading is normal for the cities.

cheers,
Mikaila31

 

[cryslea]

No, it's not normal; every time I've tested my tap water before it's come out at 0. I'm wondering if they are doing some kind of cleaning or something right now using the ammonia? Whatever, I'll call them today.

 

[waterdrop]

No, it's not normal; every time I've tested my tap water before it's come out at 0. I'm wondering if they are doing some kind of cleaning or something right now using the ammonia? Whatever, I'll call them today.

As an aside, I think its often the other way around. Many US cities use chloramination (which can result in a small reading of ammonia after the dechlorinator product splits the chlorine & ammonia) whereas they periodically switch back to straight chlorine for short periods (particularly when flushing the pipes.) The straight chlorine reaches the pipe flushing operations in higher levels than the chloramines would.

Do you know what pattern your water authority uses?

 

[cryslea]

Well, I called them today, and they said when they tested this morning it was at .8 in their facility, which they said is normal. The time I tested at 0 must have been an odd day.

Anyway, I've been watching my levels closely and using the ammo lock. Hopefully the filter will catch up soon.

 

[rdd1952]

I find it hard to believe that they would consider .8 ppm of ammonia normal. I would think that muni water supplies would want to keep things like ammonia out of the water. It would seem to be something relatively simple to prevent on their end.

 

[waterdrop]

Well, I called them today, and they said when they tested this morning it was at .8 in their facility, which they said is normal. The time I tested at 0 must have been an odd day.

Anyway, I've been watching my levels closely and using the ammo lock. Hopefully the filter will catch up soon.

But did they say whether they were using straight chlorine or chloramination or some scheduled combo? I may be wrong (and may end up asking our public water people some day) but I think the residual of up to 1ppm of ammonia after you "dechlorinate" chloraminated tap water is real. ~w~

 

[darkwolf29a]

I would be careful with your water then.

In fact, I might consider getting a RO system. I use a Brita filter to filter out the nasty parts, chlorine, etc. That's all I use.

 

[TammyLiz]

Hey I have the same issue. The water company actually came over to my house and tested it and it was lower on their equipment than my test kit said it was. They said it was within regulation. They explained that the chloramine breaks down slowly over time and since I am near the end of the line from the treatment plant it has more time to break down into ammonia.

I do have issues in new tanks but in a mature tank the ammonia just gets cycled out fairly quickly after a water change. Its best not to do huge water changes because of it. I hate it.

The weirdest thing is that sometimes when I do a water change the ammonia level in the tank matches that of the tap water. It does not make sense when I have not changed all the water, so I'm not sure what's really going on.

HTH.

 

[rdd1952]

For those with ammonia in their tap water, switching to Prime as a dechlor would be the best bet. It also detoxifies ammonia so even though it would be there, it would not be toxic and harmful and the bacteria should process it rather quickly.

 

[TammyLiz]

Yes, I forgot to mention I dose Prime at 1 1/2 times what it says on the bottle.

 

[rdd1952]

The weirdest thing is that sometimes when I do a water change the ammonia level in the tank matches that of the tap water. It does not make sense when I have not changed all the water, so I'm not sure what's really going on.

If you test pretty soon after a WC, the fact that it's higher than the tap wter reading could be from the ammonia released when the chloramine is broken down into ammonia and chloramine.

 

[TammyLiz]

The weirdest thing is that sometimes when I do a water change the ammonia level in the tank matches that of the tap water. It does not make sense when I have not changed all the water, so I'm not sure what's really going on.

If you test pretty soon after a WC, the fact that it's higher than the tap wter reading could be from the ammonia released when the chloramine is broken down into ammonia and chloramine.

Ahhh, yes that would make sense.

I think I just lost a fish to this. I had to do a 50% water change while medicating. I was thinking the fish was going to pull through and then it died after the water change.

I am so sick of this that I'm considering switching to RO and adding the minerals back in myself to just skip this whole chloramine thing. Its one thing to be inconvenienced by it but its something totally different to be losing fish because of it. Grrr.