Ammonia question

[akathewhistler]

In the course of battling my on going ammonia crisis (the levels of which are slowly but surely coming down with daily water changes), I tested my source water, just to check. Low and behold, the water coming out of my tap read an ammonia level of 1.0. Is this normal or should it concern me? Is adding this ammonia laced water a problem and if it is, what can I do about it. I Brita filter my water to reduce chlorine and heavy metals (we recently had a lead in the tap water scare) but that doesn't remove ammonia. Just wondering.

 

[CiscoKid]

Could it be a bad test kit? Do you have access to a different ammonia test kit to verify your readings?

 

[Cafe Jeff]

My bet is it's Chloramine in your water, something that I find the water treatment products do not deal with so well.
Can you let you water age before using it? This fixed my problem. Jeff

 

[grimlock3000]

Letting water age will not fix a Chloramine issue since it does not outgas from the water likle Chlorine does.

 

[Cafe Jeff]

Yikes.
How do you fix it then? Jeff
(Anyway, I am not sure that this is the source of the problem which akathewhistler started the thread about.)

 

[TankGirl]

There should not be ammonia in your tap water. If you dechlorinate tap water it will remove the chlorine from the chloramine and leave you with ammonia, but I would not think 1ppm. I would take your tap water to the LFS and have them use their test kit on it, or get a new kit, or call your utility company.

 

[Cafe Jeff]

There shouldn't be ammonia in the tap water.
But when I use my plain-jane test kit on my tap water, I get nearly 1 ppm of ammonia--which I believe is a reading of the chloramine and or a byproduct of that chloramine. Needless to say, I am less than pleased.
Contrary to what other posters have suggested, letting the tap water stand for 48 hours does seem to make a difference. Jeff