Ammonia in tap water!

[DCtank]

Pleae help. My 29 gal. freshwater tank was cycled. Then I did a water change (20%) and later noticed red gills on fish (3 platies, 6 zebras). Fish seem fine otherwise. Water showed .25 ammonia. Checked my tap water. To my dismay, it was 1.0 ammonia!

What do I do? It has stayed .25 for 3 days now. Adding tap water with WC will just add more ammonia. Prime is only temporary. Spring water is expensive.

Options? Advice?

FYI, my tap water has chloramines, not just chlorine. Sigh.

 

[Convict2161]

Can you use RO water or distilled?

How about boiling the water and then letting it cool, after filling a 5 gallon bucket up. Let it sit and cool then test it. That maybe the cheapest way.

 

[DCtank]

Can you use RO water or distilled?

How about boiling the water and then letting it cool, after filling a 5 gallon bucket up. Let it sit and cool then test it. That maybe the cheapest way.

Boiling the water? Does that remove ammonia?

 

[abstract373]

Ive read on prime bottle to double dose for the chlorimines

 

[jlk]

Boiling is a novel approach but it wont remove chloramine and it will condense the mineral content, so I dont think this will help. Either stick to small water changes, more frequently with lots of prime or consider an undersink RO unit. Buying water (spring water is fine) will get expensive fast unless you know someone you can get decent water from. Collecting rainwater may be another option but you will have to be able to play a bit of chemistry with this. There are people on here with higher amounts of ammonia in their tap than yours, so hopefully they will chime in with what works for them.

 

[aqua_chem]

Two things to remember.

One, ammonia test kits can detect chloramines reacted with Prime as ammonia, resulting in a false positive. It's also positive that the chloramines can react directly with the testing reagents without using a dechlorinator intermediate.

Two, remember that in the same way that you can add tap water to dilute the ammonia in your tank, you can dilute your tap water by adding it to the tank. If you do a 25% water change, the effective ammonia level in your tank will only be 0.25 ppm. If you're using a good dechlorinator, such as prime, most of this will be bound into a harmless form, and rapidly consumed by your biofilter.


Also, how long has the tank been set up?

 

[blert]

...
One, ammonia test kits can detect chloramines reacted with Prime as ammonia, resulting in a false positive. It's also positive that the chloramines can react directly with the testing reagents without using a dechlorinator intermediate.
...

This has always caused some concern for me and since you are the man to go to concerning all things "aqua" and "chem" related I figure I will ask now at the slight risk of hijacking this thread.
Chloramine is Chlorine bonded with Ammonia, correct?
Prime, and most other conditioners, break this bond leaving you with the constituent parts of Chlorine and Ammonia. Prime then neutralizes the resulting Chlorine leaving you with the left over Ammonia. How is this a 'false positive' when the Ammonia is truly still there (albeit in a Prime bonded temporarily non toxic state)?
Is this just me being picky about wording?

 

[aqua_chem]

This has always caused some concern for me and since you are the man to go to concerning all things "aqua" and "chem" related I figure I will ask now at the slight risk of hijacking this thread.
Chloramine is Chlorine bonded with Ammonia, correct?
Prime, and most other conditioners, break this bond leaving you with the constituent parts of Chlorine and Ammonia. Prime then neutralizes the resulting Chlorine leaving you with the left over Ammonia. How is this a 'false positive' when the Ammonia is truly still there (albeit in a Prime bonded temporarily non toxic state)?


Is this just me being picky about wording?

Maybe a little, but you are technically correct. In the analytical sense of the word, you are absolutely correct that it is technically still detecting ammonia in the system. There are probably better words to describe the effect that I'm referring to (noise? background?). It becomes more applicable when you are trying to test your ammonia to measure the efficiency of your biofilter, where ammonia present = poor bacteria performance, and in that case it does follow a more classical definition of false positive. If anything, I was just being lazy on my vocabulary.

 

[blert]

Maybe a little, but you are technically correct. In the analytical sense of the word, you are absolutely correct that it is technically still detecting ammonia in the system. There are probably better words to describe the effect that I'm referring to (noise? background?). It becomes more applicable when you are trying to test your ammonia to measure the efficiency of your biofilter, where ammonia present = poor bacteria performance, and in that case it does follow a more classical definition of false positive. If anything, I was just being lazy on my vocabulary.

Ok, I get what you are saying. It's not a positive result in regards to an issue with the bio filter therefore could be considered a false positive.

 

[phishfriend]

Pleae help. My 29 gal. freshwater tank was cycled. Then I did a water change (20%) and later noticed red gills on fish (3 platies, 6 zebras). Fish seem fine otherwise. Water showed .25 ammonia. Checked my tap water. To my dismay, it was 1.0 ammonia!

What do I do? It has stayed .25 for 3 days now. Adding tap water with WC will just add more ammonia. Prime is only temporary. Spring water is expensive.

Options? Advice?

FYI, my tap water has chloramines, not just chlorine. Sigh.

I have this problem where I live and ammonia in tap water is not uncommon. If your tank is cycled than the tank will have no problem handling the ammonia in about 24 hrs. I do a 50% WC every other week in the evening and test the following morning my ammonia is 0

How long has the tank been up? With the fish you have your system should be more than capable of handling a 20% water change containing 1.0 ammonia. So having .25 ammonia lvls 3 days later made me go "hmm". What type of filtration are you using? Did you rinse your medium and possibly cause a mini cycle?

 

[phishfriend]

aqua chem,

Is there a certain testing kit you are referring to about the false positive?

edit---- I reread your post and see that you said "kits". disregard my question I misread

 

[DCtank]

The tank is only 6 weeks old (Penguin filter with two pads and biowheel) but I started with a big bag of bacteria from a tank at my LFS. Until now my numbers were always: ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and - recently- nitrate 20. That's why I did the 20% WC and, as a result, the ammonia has stayed at .25 since ... going on 5 days now.

 

[phishfriend]

The tank is only 6 weeks old (Penguin filter with two pads and biowheel) but I started with a big bag of bacteria from a tank at my LFS. Until now my numbers were always: ammonia 0, nitrite 0, and - recently- nitrate 20. That's why I did the 20% WC and, as a result, the ammonia has stayed at .25 since ... going on 5 days now.

Did you use prime or another water conditioner? If you did a water change with out it you may have killed a portion of your BB And when you say "big bag of bacteria" was it gravel or some other type of medium?

With the tank being so new. This may just be a spike which is common in new systems. It can also happen when adding or changing stock. I wouldn't continue to let the .25 ppm stick around. It's just doing more and more damage to your fish. If you haven't tested you tap water in a week. It's time to retest it. If you are still getting a high ammonia reading. Then you may want to consider a RO water change of 50%. It can only help

 

[DCtank]

I have this problem where I live and ammonia in tap water is not uncommon. If your tank is cycled than the tank will have no problem handling the ammonia in about 24 hrs. I do a 50% WC every other week in the evening and test the following morning my ammonia is 0

How long has the tank been up? With the fish you have your system should be more than capable of handling a 20% water change containing 1.0 ammonia. So having .25 ammonia lvls 3 days later made me go "hmm". What type of filtration are you using? Did you rinse your medium and possibly cause a mini cycle?

I have a Penguin filter with two pads and a biowheel. Haven't changed them out or rinsed them so no loss of bacteria there. The filter was off for about 20 minutes while I was fixing the electrical outlet I use but that was a week earlier and, from what I've read, that wouldn't be long enough for the wheel to dry out and kill the bacteria. I thought about a mini cycle too, but a week at .25 -- no higher -- and no sign of nitrItes yet?

 

[blert]

I have a Penguin filter with two pads and a biowheel. Haven't changed them out or rinsed them so no loss of bacteria there. The filter was off for about 20 minutes while I was fixing the electrical outlet I use but that was a week earlier and, from what I've read, that wouldn't be long enough for the wheel to dry out and kill the bacteria. I thought about a mini cycle too, but a week at .25 -- no higher -- and no sign of nitrItes yet?

Do you maybe have a live plant in there that isn't doing so well? About two years ago I had a problem where low levels of ammonia would not go away. I then figured I would remove this plant that was not doing well at all. Things went back to normal that day.

 

[DCtank]

Thanks for the suggestion but...no live plants. Going to a great fish store today to get advice.

 

[DCtank]

Well, I did a 15% water change with spring water (to avoid my high pH tap water). The good news is that my pH went down from 8 to 7.6. Unfortunately, the ammonia stayed at .25

I put in some Prime, to make the ammonia less toxic to the fish, but I know that's only temporary. Guess I'll have to buy more spring water and dose the Prime again.

The other good news...the fish SEEM fine, though I don't want to be lulled into a false sense of security.