Help With My Tap Water Needed!

[freddiesfish]

After the recent death of yet another ram I took the advice of members of this forum and invested in an api test kit. I have been testing twice a week and with regular water changes got the nitrite down to nothing, the nitrate down from 80 to 20. The ammonia however is always at .25, could not work this out until today when I tested the tap water, it leaves the tap at .25. Any ideas on how to sort this as I would love some more rams but want the water "perfect" before I do. I thought about adding ammo lock but am sure someone on here advised me against this as it would give false test results, any advice would be great. At the moment I add api water conditioner to the water when I do the changes

 

[Corleone]

Rather than buy more fish, do a fishless cycle, get the water perfect that way. Rams need pristine water - sometimes even a cycled tank isn't enough, they're best left for several months after a cycle. In a stable tank, .25 ammonia from the tap isn't a serious problem, many people have more than that. The simple solution is smaller water changes more often, and the filter will quickly take care of the small excess.

If you've still go other fish, some water conditioners like Seachem Prime remove ammonia and contain the same active ingredient as ammo-lock. You could also pre-filter water with zeolite or other ammonia absorbing filter media, but a good few people on the forum have managed to go through fish cycles with .25 ammonia simply by doing enough water changes to keep nitrite under .25 and ammonia at .25, since they can't get it below.

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, agreed, Corleone is giving what I've seen many times on TFF as the correct approach to 0.25ppm ammonia out of the tap - reduce the size of your water changes and increase the number of them.

 

[freddiesfish]

ok will do smaller changes, is it ok to use the ammo lock as well or give that a miss?

 

[NonstickRon]

ok will do smaller changes, is it ok to use the ammo lock as well or give that a miss?

NONE of them "remove" the ammonia. They change it into a non-toxic form that the bacteria can still consume. It will however cause false positives for toxic form of ammonia and nitrites. By false positives, it means that you won't know how much is the toxic form and how much is the neutralized forms. Prime also nuetralizes nitrite, and will cause the same issue with nitrite. If you add it, you're probably best using regular doses of it till you get a reading of zero ammonia and zero nitrite.

Some people have said that it will slow down the cycling process but nobody knows for certain. I've just been using Prime as my dechlorinator during my daily water changes and plan to continue to do so. I'm mid cycle with fish-in and fish are all fine. I'm a noob though and started my fish-in cycles before I knew better. If you have a fishless tank, do a fishless cycle.

Good luck!