Ammonia levels!

[Darrenpen]

Hi everyone, new to this forum so sorry if this seems a stupid question! Is it a forbidden thing to use water from hot tap when doing a water change? Did a 50% water change on my 220 ltd tank today, when I refill it I normally fill a large bucket next to the tank and syphon it into the tank slowly, rather than just putting cold in I normally warm it a little to bring it close to tank temperature, done this many times before with no proplems, today after doing a water check found a raise in ammonia level, after a lot of head scratching did a test on the tap water..... Cold tap was fine with neutral levels when I tested the hot tap it was more than 8ppm! Sorted it now with another water change but has anyone else experienced this?

 

[Scouser]

A lot of people here have a problem with tap ammonia levels.

A solution I've seen pop up is to do smaller water changes, that way the tank should be able to build up enough BB (beneficial bacteria) to buff the tap ammo.

I'm sure people with actual experience will have some more reliable advice for you

 

[librarygirl]

That's interesting and something I've never heard of. I do pwc from the tap and mix warm and cool to get the right temperature. I've never heard of hot and cold having different readings but I guess it's possible. I'd retest again to make sure. But if it does have ammonia in it you could do smaller water changes more times per week as opposed to one larger water change so you aren't adding too high of an ammonia level into the tank; the bacteria should consume it fairly quickly and if you use a good dechlorinator it should detoxify the ammonia until the bacteria can get rid of it.

 

[Scouser]

Well hot and cold water could come from 2 different sources.

In a place near me the cold water is from a nearby spring but the hot water is from a treatment plant.

Maybe its a similar lol?

 

[xawen]

It could also be the free ammonia at higher levels in the warm water (it goes up with temp or pH).

Darrenpen what test kit are you using? Something like the API master only measures total ammonia and is not sensitive to temperature. But if you're using one with a free ammonia test (SeaChem kit) any ammonia in your water will register higher levels with a higher temp on that test.