Kind of panicked about tap water ammonia

**chronic** · 03-07-2010, 06:48 AM

Mega concerned here... just did a big water change, now I know spring can have its toll on water circuits around the cities with things thawing out and what have you.

I tested my water after a water change and I had .25ppm of ammonia, which is off....

I tested my water out of the tap, and its registering about .25-.5 ppm ammonia..

My filters are established, will they kill this ammonia spike soonish?? Is there anything I can do to help this since I dont have a way to lean this out since the tap water is the cause...?

Thanks!

**Wild Turkey** · 03-07-2010, 06:56 AM

Yes, your bacterial filtration will take care of the .25ppm for you relatively quickly, how fast depends on how heavily stocked the tank is and some other factors.

What you want to do IMO is just do more frequent, but smaller waterchanges until your tap gets back to normal, the smaller the wc, the smaller the ammonia ppm in the tank will be, and the sooner your bacterial filter will reduce it back to zero.

Your ph can give you an idea of how harmful the .25 will be, but with any ph .25 is a relatively non lethal spike in a freshwater tank with typical stocking choices, and you shouldnt get spikes of even .25 if you only do small waterchanges for the time being. ( If your tap is reading .5 ppm, and you do a 20% wc you should only have about .1 ppm in the tank. )

**chronic** · 03-07-2010, 07:02 AM

Good suggestion!

Thank you!

What do you mean by ph?? My ph typically sits kind of high... 7.8, but its always been around there. And for oscars, it sounded like as long as it was stable, it was alright.

So considering my ammonia incident here, what does that ph level indicate??

**Wild Turkey** · 03-07-2010, 07:14 AM

Stability is definitely the most important part of ph for a typical tank, right on.

The ph does indicate how much of the ammonia is "Free ammonia" versus "Ionized ammonia", or ammonium. The ammonium is relatively unharmful, where as the free ammonia is what hurts the fish.

Heres a calculator

http://cobweb.ecn.purdue.edu/~piwc/w...monia/nh3.html

And another with a chart that gives a general idea of how harmful ammonia levels are at certain ph and temperatures as well as the calculations

http://www.cnykoi.com/calculators/calcnh3c.asp

**Zilla** · 03-07-2010, 11:17 AM

I have well water with ammonia in it. It's not alot, just enough to annoy me so I use a water conditioner that knocks it out and I put a Fluval Ammonia pack in my filter. The packs fit perfect with a AC 70.

Like carbon, the ammonia packs need to be changed and regular tank stuff needs to occur such as water changes, vacuuming, ect but the pack is there more to ease my mind instead of what it does for the tank.

**chronic** · 03-07-2010, 05:52 PM

I actually have some of that media in one of my filters.

The water is good today, kind of lame though... I hope my tap water settles here.

**toddnbecka** · 03-07-2010, 05:56 PM

If you don't draw your water from a well your local water treatment facility may be using chloramine in the processing of the water. Did you test your tap water for ammonia before and after using dechlorinator?

**chronic** · 03-07-2010, 06:42 PM

Ohh... That was before I added conditioner.

**SunSchein89** · 03-08-2010, 04:24 AM

Yeah my tap is all the way up to 1 ppm ammonia. I just use dechlorinator that "removes" ammonia. My tank has been fine and not had any problems even when I used dechlorinator that didn't do anything for ammonia. Shouldn't really be a problem just like the other posters stated.