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HELP! High Ammonia reading on Tap Water

2K views 13 replies 8 participants last post by  tessoci 
#1 ·
I was hoping someone can give me advice! I have never encounter this situation. My friend who lives in Fairfax, VA. has a tap water of 20ppm THATS RIGHT! 20ppm. I live in Alexandria & have had no problems with this (guess our city has diff. water source). 6 of his tetra died last week 2 died last night (Gave him this swordtail after his tetra died) He got no test kit thats why I stop buy to check his params. Here's it is:

Ammonia - (TAP) 20ppm left = (Aquarium) 10ppm
Ph - 7.2
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5
kh - 3
Temp. - 78
Waterchange weekly - 15%
feeds 1x/day what ever fish consume within a min.
planted tank
been running for about 1.5 months

-Brian
 
#2 ·
1. put a water filter under the sink ( I would do that even if there was no aquarium and my water was like that).
2. Complain to the district water company.
 
#4 ·
Geez, I never bothered to test my tap for ammonia. My nitrates are at 10 and my PO4 is pretty high at around 5 or 6, but I've never had issues with fish death or scratching from ammonia (usually because of burning gills).

This area is so wierd with their water...tastes like crap too, no wonder bottled water is such a high commodity here.
 
#5 ·
bgssamson said:
Would aging the water for 24 hrs helps?

-Brian
Thats for chlorine in the water.
Get a water filter.
Do you really want to drink water with ammonia in it?
 
#6 ·
Georgiadawgger said:
Geez, I never bothered to test my tap for ammonia. My nitrates are at 10 and my PO4 is pretty high at around 5 or 6, but I've never had issues with fish death or scratching from ammonia (usually because of burning gills).

This area is so wierd with their water...tastes like crap too, no wonder bottled water is such a high commodity here.
Welcome to VA Georgiadawgger! :icon_bigg remember last couple of months DC has an issue with there water as well (too much cooper). BTW do you know who's your water source? I live in Alexandria, VA. but we have diffent water source from fairfax.

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JeffB said:
Thats for chlorine in the water.
Get a water filter.
Do you really want to drink water with ammonia in it?
I was just thinking if that will work! its my friend water in Fairfax not in Alexandria where I live. I will tell him to buy a filter for the tanks water change as they have those water dispenser thing for drinking. If he filter the water doesn't all the minerals that the plant needs will also get filtered?LOL

Thanks!

:icon_bigg -Brian
 
#7 ·
bgssamson said:
If he filter the water doesn't all the minerals that the plant needs will also get filtered?LOL

Dose the micros back in. I use Flourish for the micros.

The only other thing I can think of is fairly radical, RO water, that will take everything out.
 
#8 ·
Sounds like a Chloramine issue. My recollection (Tessoci might provide better insight) is that treatments for Chlorine just break the bonds if chloramine is used in your water - and the end result is that it breaks down the Chlorine, and frees the ammonia! You need something that specifically treats for Chloramine, not just Chlorine.
 
#10 ·
EoS said:
Sounds like a Chloramine issue. My recollection (Tessoci might provide better insight) is that treatments for Chlorine just break the bonds if chloramine is used in your water - and the end result is that it breaks down the Chlorine, and frees the ammonia! You need something that specifically treats for Chloramine, not just Chlorine.
That's great diagnostic work EoS! :proud: I wish I could understand this stuff so well. I'm impressed.
 
#11 ·
I also heard that nitrifying bacteria in the plumbing can take chloramine treated water into nitrate to the point it fails drinking water standards...

EoS said:
Sounds like a Chloramine issue. My recollection (Tessoci might provide better insight) is that treatments for Chlorine just break the bonds if chloramine is used in your water - and the end result is that it breaks down the Chlorine, and frees the ammonia! You need something that specifically treats for Chloramine, not just Chlorine.
 
#12 ·
Georgiadawgger said:
Geez, I never bothered to test my tap for ammonia.
I never did either. Tested it once ages ago and it was fine, 0ppm of everything, so I trusted it from then on and forgot about it.

Sudden surge in ammonia/chloramines in June and I lost half my prize fish. Couldn't figure out why the nitrites were so hgh in my tanks. Took weeks to work out what the problem was because I never even once considered the tapwater could have changed, let alone as much as it did. Just my local area though, so maybe they just dosed the local water tower. And I thought improperly-cleaned Purigen was killing my filter bacteria!

And I don't think it was just the ammonia/chloramine they were dosing. I think whatever bug/bacteria/infection they were trying to kill caused just as much of a problem confusing me as to what the issue was. My largest Oranda was pooping pure blood before dying within 24 hours of internal haemorhaging. And I was doing 50% water changes to try and fix the situation, so essentially the worse it got, the even more worse I was making it with more frequent water changes!

Anyway, now I know. I still have the high ammonia problem and am scared to do water changes (not to mention ammonia feeding the algae, even if it has been detoxed with Prime etc). So those drinking water tap filters really remove ammonia? I always thought they were just activated charcoal type filters so I'll have to check them out now. Any recommendations as to which brand?
 
#13 ·
Apart from the tapwater, the 10ppm in the tank worries me a bit. Assuming it should be 0ppm if the tank is cycled (after 6 weeks?), doing only a 15% weekly water change with 20ppm tapwater would/should only raise the tank's total level from 0ppm to about 3ppm.

A tank level of 10ppm means the water change would have to be at least 50%, and that reading would drop over the week anyway as the bacteria breaks it down.

So it sounds like the tank may not be cycled, especially with NO2 at zero and NO3 so low (even with plants). Or perhaps the filter is not large enough to cope, or the bugs in the substrate haven't built up enough yet.
 
#14 ·
From what I understand, chloramine won't age out of the water. That's why water companies use it --it keeps the disinfectant properties in the water longer. You can find your area's drinking water quality report at http://www.epa.gov/safewater/ or call your water company and ask what disinfectant they use.

The EPA also has a nice little info page on chloramines at http://www.epa.gov/region09/water/chloramine.html (it's geared for San Francisco, but can be applied to your area).

EoS is exactly right: products that say "breaks the chloramine bond" do exactly that --neutralize the chlorine and free the ammonia componant. When we got back into fish after several long years, we learned this lesson the very hard way!

Our water, too, tests off the chart for ammonia straight out of the tap. That was the big clue for me! I called our water company and finally confirmed that they had switched to a chlormine disinfectant.

We now use Seachem Prime or Kent's Ammonia Detox when prepping for a water change.

Hope this helps! I'm not a chemist, but I do deal with water-quality questions quite frequently in my job, so I've learned more than I care to know about what's in raw drinking water! :icon_eek:

--Rebecca
 
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