Ammonia levels help

[Octonautmax]

Hello! Does anyone have any advice on lowering ammonia levels when the tap source is at 1 ppm?

 

[hansgruber7]

That happened to me. The only solution I encountered was to by an RO Buddy off Amazon (Around 60-70 USD I think) and I use RO water and remineralize it. You can get RO water from your LFS store, but that ends up being more expensive in time and money. Buying my own RO system solved my ammonia problem.

 

[AbbeysDad]

You can use Seachem Prime or Safe as your water conditioner when doing partial water changes. It not only neutralizes chlorine/chlorimine, but it will convert ammonia into relatively harmless ammonium. This conversion is said to only last 24 - 48 hours, but that's plenty of time for your bio-filter to process it and fast growing plants, especially floating plants will use ammnium just like ammonia as their N2 source. The downside is that if/when BB processes ammonia/ammonium, it will translate into higher tank nitrates. But the partial water change is still a plus.
You could also pre-filter the water through a product like API Nitra-Zorb, invest in RO or RO/DI, or use a different water source.

 

[mhancock]

If you were to use 50:50 RO:tap then that would halve the ammonia but still leave some minerals. Maybe that with Prime?

 

[hansgruber7]

For what it's worth, I tried those options and my ammonia levels stayed around 0.25 or 05.ppm which ended up killing some of my fish over time. I had to switch to 100 percent RO and remineralize it. I think that's the best option based on my experience. Any sustained ammonia levels above zero will lead to fish deaths over time I think. Just my two cents. 1ppm is pretty high; I think what you all recommend can work for lower levels.