Tap water with ammonia vs Tiny Tank

[squidsquiggle]

I am an extremely paranoid individual, so I apologize if my questions tend to be a little on the silly or, you know, paranoid side.

My tap water has an ammonia reading around 1ppm. Usually this doesn't matter much in the bigger tanks, since the bacteria clears it all up in a few hours. But now I have a baby rubberlip pleco in quarantine in a 3.5 gallon, and I'm a little worried about the small volume of the tank.

I set out a cup of Prime treated tap water for several hours, and it still reads 1ppm ammonia. The tank itself is just barely over 0pmm, maybe .05 (it's just not bright yellow) after 24 hours. Is doing a water change on such a small volume going to do any harm? Is my ammonia non-toxic thanks to Prime, but still registering on the API test anyway?

Temp is 75, NitrAtes are about 7ppm.

 

[ridewithme38]

Prime Detoxifies Ammonia(NH3) by changing it to ammonium(NH4+)(Ionized or something like that) when using the API test kit, this will still show on the Ammonia test...but it shouldn't harm your fish...

If you have something like the Ammonia Alert test from SeaChem that hangs on the aquarium glass, that only measures Free Ammonia(NH3) instead of the total ammonia(NH4+) that the API test measures

 

[squidsquiggle]

Prime Detoxifies Ammonia(NH3) by changing it to ammonium(NH4+)(Ionized or something like that) when using the API test kit, this will still show on the Ammonia test...but it shouldn't harm your fish...

If you have something like the Ammonia Alert test from SeaChem that hangs on the aquarium glass, that only measures Free Ammonia(NH3) instead of the total ammonia(NH4+) that the API test measures

I've seen those before, but didn't realize they measured free ammonia rather than total. I'll have to pick one up to give me some peace of mind. Thanks!

 

[adeebm]

Prime will detoxify ammonia for up to 24hrs. Try a water change and test for ammonia after 24hrs. If it's gone by then, you're safe. If the tank's cycled, there shouldn't be a problem. No need to pick up an ammonia alert.

--Adeeb

 

[squidsquiggle]

The tank is newly set up, but the 10 gallon filter and extra bag of filter media, plus a couple of decorations, are from an older tank, so I was hoping that was enough to stop any problems. It was sort of an unplanned QT.