Ammonia binders

[CDREMY]

My ammonia readings have been somewhere between o and ,25. Fish look good. Done water changes. Wondering if a ammonia binder might help. Also at what reading does this become a health issue.

 

[Retired Viking]

Ammonia at any level is not good for your fish. Live plants can really help get rid of ammonia.

 

[seangee]

What test kit are you using. Some batches of the API kit have shown this. If it stays constant and never goes up don't worry about it. If it is up after a water change and drops a day later don't worry about it.

If your tap water contains chloramine you need to treat it with a de-chlorinator that deals with this. The old school way of letting it "age" for a day works for chlorine but not chloramine. Conversely if you have chloramine and do treat it some tests will give an ammonia reading as the chloramine is splt into chlorine and ammonia (which your filter then deals with).

@Retired Viking is correct, but if your fish are healthy and it never goes up its not worth stressing about.

 

[Essjay]

It is free ammonia that is important not total ammonia, and our test kits measure total ammonia. There are calculators to work out how much of the test kit reading is free ammonia - if you tell us your pH and tank temperature, I'll check for you. I need the extra data as free ammonia varies with pH and temp.