Help!! 0.5 ammonia!!

[enrgizerbunny]

So....I just tested the tap water and it's in the water from my faucet.

You likely have chloramine in your tap water (chlorine+ammonia) that your water supplier used to clean the water instead of chlorine. A well established biofilter should remove this excess of ammonia (which is more than likely ammonium ion) overnight. To deal with this you can cut your tap water 50/50 with drinking water or distilled water. You can also use spring water, but the two former choices are cheaper. Water purified by reverse osmosis or deionized water are also choices if you have a dispenser in your grocery store.

 

[sallyjano]

Any ammonia is harmful, though not necessarily lethal. I come from a family of fish breeders and grew up with this mandate drilled into my head, though I personally didn't start keeping fish until last year. Ammonia is bad news in any amount, though small amounts will not necessarily kill all fish. (.25 CAN kill some, depending on species sensitivity.) Make sure you get some Prime today, to help with the fish-in cycle.

Thanks Greta will do. Am on my way to the store right now.....!

 

[mrvincent]

You are the guy wich I told it was safe to transfer fishs from the 10g to 60g by transferring the 10g filter ?

I unplanned there's ammonia in your tap... In established tanks, it's ok because ammonia will drop in one day. But now it's a bit different. When you do water change, you can cut 50/50 tap with rodi/distillated. Don't only add distillated water, it's unmineralized and will drop the PH and stress the fishs.

You can add Seachem Equilibrum to RODI and add 100% rodi to the tank.

 

[Mebbid]

Phew! Ok thanks. I didn't realize. I thought I had read that any ammonia was harmful. I know that once a tank is cycled it gets rid of any ammonia in the water but since its a newly upgraded tank I was not sure it would do that yet.

Anyway thanks and I will research it more.

Any ammonia is harmful, though not necessarily lethal. I come from a family of fish breeders and grew up with this mandate drilled into my head, though I personally didn't start keeping fish until last year. Ammonia is bad news in any amount, though small amounts will not necessarily kill all fish. (.25 CAN kill some, depending on species sensitivity.) Make sure you get some Prime today, to help with the fish-in cycle.

Scientific results on ammonia toxicity in fish:

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f12/your-guide-to-ammonia-toxicity-159994.html

 

[mrvincent]

Even in a well established tank, there's always trace levels of ammonia/nitrites, almost undetectables...

 

[sallyjano]

You are the guy wich I told it was safe to transfer fishs from the 10g to 60g by transferring the 10g filter ?

I unplanned there's ammonia in your tap... In established tanks, it's ok because ammonia will drop in one day. But now it's a bit different. When you do water change, you can cut 50/50 tap with rodi/distillated. Don't only add distillated water, it's unmineralized and will drop the PH and stress the fishs.

You can add Seachem Equilibrum to RODI and add 100% rodi to the tank.

Not the guy but the girl yes. Well if you can call 42 years old a girl

Update and questions......

I just tested the water this AM and thankfully the ammonia dropped quite a bit (I've now added 2 sets of ammonia remover). It's less than .25 but more than 0. Probably about .15 ish.

I have a spout for filtered water (next to regular faucet in the kitchen) which reads very low ammonia, maybe only .1 or so but no temperature control so I'm going to put a bunch of it in plastic storage containers to warm up.

Will that be ok as long as they are rinsed out? No toxic chemicals or anything in storage bins?

And when would you do a water change again? I did 50% yesterday.......wait until tomorrow now that it's come down?

 

[mrvincent]

I'll do WC when nitrates raise too high, or if ammonia show up too much again.

Lol sorry, I call everybody "guys" or "dude" when it's from a forum -.-

Make sure your filtered water have enough KH in it, RODI like water is not good for aquarium use, as it's not enough mineralized.

 

[sallyjano]

I'll do WC when nitrates raise too high, or if ammonia show up too much again.

Lol sorry, I call everybody "guys" or "dude" when it's from a forum -.-

Make sure your filtered water have enough KH in it, RODI like water is not good for aquarium use, as it's not enough mineralized.

Oh OK got it! Then I'm happy to be one of the guys

I don't have KH test kit. I will try and get one.

 

[mrvincent]

Oh OK got it! Then I'm happy to be one of the guys

I don't have KH test kit. I will try and get one.

If it's not water coming from RODI unit, then no need for testing KH.

RODI unit look like this

 

[sallyjano]

If it's not water coming from RODI unit, then no need for testing KH.

RODI unit look like this

Oh OK no I don't have one of those.

 

[Fresh2o]

Phew! Ok thanks. I didn't realize. I thought I had read that any ammonia was harmful. I know that once a tank is cycled it gets rid of any ammonia in the water but since its a newly upgraded tank I was not sure it would do that yet.

Anyway thanks and I will research it more.

Sorry...did not want to down play the toxicity of ammonia. Just in my situation it was dealt with by the established filter and low bio load. I am a proponent of under stocking and over filtration; it gives you a margin of error in case of the unexpected. I see others have replied accordingly. Water changes resolves a lot of issues. I do not have an RODI unit and did not know what Prime was at the time; just used the tap as is.

 

[mrvincent]

Ammonia is less toxic under lower PH. What we call ammonia is NH3+NH4, ammonia + ammonium. NH3 toxic ammonia transform into non toxic NH4 ammonium under lower ph conditions.

For sure the more filtration there's, the more it's good !

 

[sallyjano]

Ammonia is less toxic under lower PH. What we call ammonia is NH3+NH4, ammonia + ammonium. NH3 toxic ammonia transform into non toxic NH4 ammonium under lower ph conditions.

For sure the more filtration there's, the more it's good !

Oh boy. Who knew you had to be a chemist to keep fish!! When I started this journey 18 months ago I had no clue it was this involved. Still worth it though......I have a chair in front of my tank.....better than TV!

Thanks for the clarification. I will continue to monitor things.

 

[mrvincent]

I'm a chimist since I started aquarium hobby

I didn't knew anything about nitrogen behavious/water chemistry before I started this hobby...

 

[sallyjano]

I'm a chimist since I started aquarium hobby

I didn't knew anything about nitrogen behavious/water chemistry before I started this hobby...

Me neither and chemistry was not my strong subject at school!! Let's hope this is like last time though - once the pain and stress of cycling (for me and the fish!) is over, it's easy street. With my 10g once the tank stabilized I had no problems. Looking forward to that day with this one!

 

[venymae]

So...n0ob question here, I thought prime was not a long term fix and only bound ammonia for up to 48 hours and then it converts back. Am I wrong?

 

[sallyjano]

So...n0ob question here, I thought prime was not a long term fix and only bound ammonia for up to 48 hours and then it converts back. Am I wrong?

I am a noobie also but on their website it says "Prime® is the complete and concentrated conditioner for both fresh and salt water. Prime® removes chlorine, chloramine and ammonia. Prime® converts ammonia into a safe, non-toxic form that is readily removed by the tank’s biofilter."

No mention of makes it safe only for 48 hours that I can see.

 

[enrgizerbunny]

So...n0ob question here, I thought prime was not a long term fix and only bound ammonia for up to 48 hours and then it converts back. Am I wrong?

No, you're completely correct. Although I wouldn't trust the 48 hour claim to the mark, it still gives you time to change water or protect the fish while the biofilter takes care of the ammonia naturally.

Sent from my SCH-I435 using Aquarium Advice mobile app

 

[sallyjano]

New question.........

Added Prime last night. Tested this AM and still .25. Not great but better than .5!

Had an idea on how to do a water change without introducing .5 water from my faucet. The filtered spout next to my kitchen faucet is much lower ammonia. I haven't used because it's icy cold water. My plan.......fill a bucket 80% with the filtered water, then add boiling water to heat it up to get it to around the right temperature. Keep repeating until 50% water change complete. (Sigh....good job I have no plans this evening.....).

I have an electric kettle at home. Any reason I shouldn't use boiling water from the kettle to warm up the icy cold filtered water???

 

[Mebbid]

New question.........

Added Prime last night. Tested this AM and still .25. Not great but better than .5!

Had an idea on how to do a water change without introducing .5 water from my faucet. The filtered spout next to my kitchen faucet is much lower ammonia. I haven't used because it's icy cold water. My plan.......fill a bucket 80% with the filtered water, then add boiling water to heat it up to get it to around the right temperature.

I have an electric kettle at home. Any reason I shouldn't use boiling water from the kettle to warm up the icy cold filtered water???

Once your biological filter is sorted out, the .5ppm ammonia from the tap is enough to safely ignore. The filtered water will lose some of its buffering capabilities and change the pH but it should be okay to use.