Ammonia issues - desperate! Shall I replace substrate?

Wakevi

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Hi there
I have been having ammonia issues (0.25-0.5) in our established planted 150litre tropical tank for about a month now. There is 0.5 ammonia in our tap water. To deal with this we have started waterchanging with RO water, but this hasn't made much of a difference. Our nitrates are also 20-30. Higher than normal for us. We have lost one platy so far with pine-coning. Relevant factors:
- madagascan snail infestation (literally hundreds) - could the dead ones be feeding the ammonia levels?
- Quite a lot of old food pellets are in the substrate because my hopplo sternum catfish hoards and doesn't eat them all. They are not siphoning up easily when I clean which I do on a weekly basis.

We are going to reduce the bio-load on the tank by getting rid of a lot of platys over the next 10 days, but in the meantime I am starting to wonder about changing the substrate completely - taking all the snails with it and euthanising the lot of them with clove oil.

Will a change of substrate cause huge additional problems? Advice very much appreciated because this is our first tank.

With thanks :) :fish: 🙏
 
The uneaten pellets rotting on the bottom are causing the ammonia and subsequently higher nitrate levels. Reduce the amount of food you put in the tank and use a gravel cleaner to clean the gunk out of the substrate when you do water changes.

If you have an ammonia or nitrite reading above 0ppm, or a nitrate reading above 20ppm, do a 75% water change and gravel clean the substrate every day until the levels are 0ppm.
Make sure any new water is free of chlorine/ chloramine before it's added to the tank.

If you have ammonia in the tap water, you probably have chloramine in your water supply. You can confirm this by contacting your water company by phone or website.
 
Yes the 100s of dead snails will cause ammonia. I probably wouldn't change the substrate as the mass die-off has already occurred so the beneficial bacteria will already be 'playing catch-up' by multiplying to deal with the higher levels of ammonia. You would lose beneficial bacteria by changing the substrate, and it's extremely messy too. Just syphon or manually pick out as many of the snails as you can.
How many RO water changes have you done, what percentage of the water have you changed, and how frequently have you done them? Larger water changes usually help reduce ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.
What is your pH? If it is less than 7.0, the ammonia will be in it's less toxic form of ammonium.
 
Ammonia 0.5 ppm in tap water. Next someone will report plutonium in their tap water. What’s going on with the water supply?
 
I have just found an interesting article on Practical Fishkeeping's website. They hope to construct a map of the UK showing where chloramine is used instead of chlorine, and the article tells the reader how to get a precise water quality report from the water company - we need to ask for a Schedule 4 Report or PWZ Report (depending which the water company uses)

@Wakevi it could be worth contacting your water company to ask for this report.to see if it's chloramine which is causing the tap ammonia reading.


 
Chloramine has to be reduced in order to release ammonia.
NH2Cl+H2O→NH3+HOCl
What is a reducing agent in tap water?
 
Chloramine still shows in the ammonia test. The DWI (Drinking Water Inspectorate) also says that where chloramine is used, there is often nitrite in tap water while there isn't with chlorine.
 
Are you saying the ammonia test kit is actually measuring chloramine in the tap water. The test cross reacts with chloramine?
 
Chloramine is a mixture of chlorine and ammonia. In most places that use chloramine, they don't always get the dosages right and there is usually too much ammonia added. This leaves free ammonia in the water as well as chloramine. When dechlorinaters are added to tap water, they break the chlorine ammonia bond and neutralise the chlorine, leaving behind ammonia. The ammonia is taken up by the filter bacteria.

Some dechlorinaters will bind with free ammonia for a period of time (around 24 hours) and this stops the ammonia harming the fish while the filter bacteria get rid of it.

Having said that, the most likely cause of ammonia in the tank is from uneaten food and rotting snails. If this is dealt with, the filter bacteria should be able to deal with any ammonia from water changes within a few hours of the water change.
 
Are you saying the ammonia test kit is actually measuring chloramine in the tap water. The test cross reacts with chloramine?
That's what members with chloramine have suggested in the past. I can't prove or disprove it as I have chlorine in my tap water.

If members with chloramine in their tap water could test their untreated tap water for ammonia, please, then we'll know for sure whether chloramine shows in the test.
 
I have found this on-line
Traditional testing methods for nitrogen ammonia using Nessler or salicylate reagent sets list monochloramine as an interference. If monochloramine is in the sample, the nitrogen ammonia results will be biased high. Avoid these methods for free ammonia testing.
from https://support.hach.com/myhach/s/article/KA-en-US-TE128-1000057?language=en_US

Since API and probably other brands use the salicylate test, if monochloramine interferes with the test and the results are 'biased high', it would appear that the test also detects chloramine.
 

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