Why Ammonia in tap water?

[mansiz]

I fill up a pail of tap water yesterday and added salt to make it a correct SG, but when I measure the ammonia level today, it is presence, why tap water also have ammonia? What should I do? Then is'nt it that I don't perform water changes better still? At least my main tank got no ammonia. Any way to help on this problem?

 

[mansiz]

I apologize for the above post, I made a mistake, there is no ammonia in the tap water, the problem lies with the salt. I tested the tap water but there is no ammonia, but there is ammonia with the salt mixed tap water. Why my salt creates ammonia? Is it because I don't store them properly or I bought lousy salt brand?

 

[cj10488]

What Brand of Salt did you purchase??? Most Synthetic salts should not contain any ammonia.. I dont believe you stored it incorrectly unless you dumped ammonia into the bag/bucket... IMO I would probably contact the manufacture of the salts and yell at them... Having that ammonia in their salt killed half your livestock right lol I have tested alot of salts but havent found any traces of ammonia in them at all..

James

 

[mansiz]

Ya it does cause a lot of my live stock died last time, but it did'nt cause my new tank any problem, btw my new tank is not using that brand for starting, I uses another kind, its just that I wanna do some water changes, so I uses this, luckily I tested it before doing the changes, if not......hahaha. I forgot the brand, because I thrown the bag away long ago, but I'll post it tomolo, I go to LFS see. Many people uses this salt without a problem, don't know why mine only, hahaha. The cost is around S$7 ( US $3.50 ), is this too cheap for marine salt?

 

[tkos]

Does your tap water get treated using chlorine and or chloramine? If so when you use a water conditioner with chloramine it splits it into ammonia and chlrine (which gets nutralized). This may be a source of ammonia. Do you add anything at all else to the water?

 

[mansiz]

Ya, my tap water do have chlorine, I'm sure most country tap water do have chlorine presence to kill bacteria. I did'nt place any chlorine remover. After collecting the water from the tap to the pail, I add in salt immediately. So you mean the chlorine and the salt mix is the source of the ammonia? So if thats the case, I can solve this problem by leaving the water over night then I add salt? I'm so confuse, thanks for all reply.