Ammonia in the tap water

[sharkweek178]

I'm preparing to receive a shipment of fish by FedEx today. In preparation yesterday, I did a big water change on my quarantine tank. It's been cycled and I've been adding maintenance doses of ammonia. I changed 60% out, twice. Imagine my surprise when I tested it after and got an ammonia lineup of 1.0 ppm. At first I thought I might have inadvertently added too much while keeping the cycle going. But then I tested the tap water. It's 1.0 out of the tap.
I threw clumps of hornwort in the quarantine tank. I retested this morning and the hornwort and/or the tank's bb brought the ammonia down to zero. I remembered that I had an old bottle of tap water in my fridge that I filled months ago. I tested the water from that and it was 0.
I think my quarantine tank is safe. So that's fine. And I'll be on the phone to the water company later today.

My big question is how do I do water changes from here with ammonia that high coming out of the tap? Some would say use Prime. But I don't know if Prime actually does detoxify ammonia. If it did, that works give the beneficial bacteria and/or plants enough time to process the ammonia. But I don't know if that's actually true.

 

[sharkweek178]

I just got off the phone with the phone company. I don't think the rep was really prepared for the conversation about water chemistry. To be fair, most of her job is people with questions about their bills. She was nice and able to report that there are no reports that the water isn't safe for human consumption. But as far as fish keeping, she was out of her depth (no pun intented).

 

[MaloK]

Yes Prime will bind the ammonia to detoxify it in the water and leave it bio available for bacteria for a period of time...

You might have to use a little more than the dose used to remove Chloramine tho.

 

[sharkweek178]

Yes Prime will bind the ammonia to detoxify it in the water and leave it bio available for bacteria for a period of time...

You might have to use a little more than the dose used to remove Chloramine tho.

I already do that part. I'm wondering if they increased the chloramine levels if that would show up as ammonia on the test.

 

[MaloK]

I tend to think that it's a bad Chloramine mix at the treatment plant that resulted in free unbounded ammonia in the water.

I get the same here from time to time, but it never went to 1 ppm.

 

[sharkweek178]

I tend to think that it's a bad Chloramine mix at the treatment plant that resulted in free unbounded ammonia in the water.

I get the same here from time to time, but it never went to 1 ppm.

I'm hoping this is temporary. I just did a water change for one tank on Sunday and my betta tank yesterday. None of the fish are showing any ill effects. I'll test the water and keep an eye out.

 

[Colin_T]

Someone at the water company screwed up and overdosed the ammonia when making chloramine. Monitor the level and complain about it every week until it's fixed.

Ammonia is poisonous to people, birds, reptiles, amphibians and all animals. There shouldn't be any in the water.

 

[sharkweek178]

Someone at the water company screwed up and overdosed the ammonia when making chloramine. Monitor the level and complain about it every week until it's fixed.

Ammonia is poisonous to people, birds, reptiles, amphibians and all animals. There shouldn't be any in the water.

Ideally it would be zero. But there isn't a federal standard here.

 

[Colin_T]

Ideally it would be zero. But there isn't a federal standard here.

Write to the press and let them know the "water company is poisoning its customers". A news headline like that will get the water company fixing things real fast. You can also write to the government and demand they make a limit for free ammonia in the water (preferably 0ppm). There's one for nitrites and nitrates and should be for anything harmful or toxic.

 

[fishorama]

I have chloramine treated water where I live now. It shows ammonia on an API test out of the tap. I use Prime dechlor, that keeps it in the safer NH4 form for 24-48 hours. Long enough for your beneficial bacteria to catch up. I've never found any ammonia in a cycled tank after a day or so. I forget the test that shows NH3 (more harmful) ammonia. Seachem maybe?

Sometimes water cos. may increase or change water parameters for whatever reason (seasonal changes, line flushing?). I'm too lazy to test every water change. I've only once had a problem & I'm not sure why. But all my plants died back including java fern I thought indestructible (no fish). Luckily, the roots lived & all grew again.

 

[sharkweek178]

I have chloramine treated water where I live now. It shows ammonia on an API test out of the tap. I use Prime dechlor, that keeps it in the safer NH4 form for 24-48 hours. Long enough for your beneficial bacteria to catch up. I've never found any ammonia in a cycled tank after a day or so. I forget the test that shows NH3 (more harmful) ammonia. Seachem maybe?

Sometimes water cos. may increase or change water parameters for whatever reason (seasonal changes, line flushing?). I'm too lazy to test every water change. I've only once had a problem & I'm not sure why. But all my plants died back including java fern I thought indestructible (no fish). Luckily, the roots lived & all grew again.

It took less than 12 hours after I added hornwort. Like I said in the OP I was expecting fish by FedEx the next day. I added a few clumps of hornwort. Which I was going to do anyways. Between that and the beneficial bacteria, the tank was safe by the time the new fish arrived.