water conditioner

[mjd271169]

Hi

since setting up my tank I have been useing a conditioner that gets rid of chlorine and chloramines before adding water to the tank when doing water changes. I set up a QT tank this week and have been doing tha same, I am running a corner filter with gravel from my cycled tank but the ammonia was showing even after a full water change. I didn't think it could be the fish as I now only have one tetra in there so out of curiosity I tested the tap water and it has 0.25ppm of ammonia.

Should I use something like ammo lock to tap water before adding to a tank that way it gets rid of eveything chlorines and ammonia, I am worried now that my water changes may have been introducing ammonia to the tank and possibly could be stressing the fish. I check water every other day though and the main tank is fine.

Until today I had assumed that ammonia was not present in tap water,

Thanks

[jusdeb]

I have learnt never to assume when it comes to tap water.

Here in dubbo the water is mainly bore water which is loaded with minerals ( 7 bores ) and then the rest is river water which fluctuates according to rain , or lack of it.

It might be a good habit to get into to test your water all the time and age it for as long as you can.

[y2jdaze]

Prime is a great water conditioner for removing all those tap water nasties and it will actually help to remove that ammonia... I have a half full 2 ft spawning tank that had a high ammonia level in it and I just added a capful (which is a super uber high dose - because you don't need much!) of Prime and the next day the ammonia was zero again

your main tank probably has a good biofilter that is taking care of any ammonia you introduce but it would be good to keep an eye on it!

[DukeOfYabon]

I'm in the Sydney Water area and I can get ammonia readings between 0.25-0.50 PPM.

From what I understand, if your tap water tests positive for ammonia then your water company uses chloramine to treat the water. You need a water conditioner that treats chloramine.

Prime is a really good product. It may appear expensive, however it is very concentrated so it lasts for ages. Quite a few people dose higher than the recommended rate, e.g. you could use it at double the recommended strength. Be aware that it also does lots of other things of questionable benefit such as provide a protective coating for fish amongst others.

I'm not using prime, I use AquaPlus which I am happy with. I age my water for a couple of days in a seperate large container that I have and I aerate it and use a cheap heater so the temp matches that of the tank. Aging is a good idea if you can manage it.

I wouldn't worry too much as I think that your beneficial bacteria colonies will grow to deal with the increased ammonia levels in short time.

Sydney Water has an artical called "Typical Drinking Water Analysis Sheet", and also has an artical you should read called "How to protect your fish". Here are the links:

http://www.sydneywater.com.au/WaterQuality...gWaterAnalysis/

http://www.sydneywater.com.au/Publications...t_your_fish.pdf

Cheers,

Jason

[mjd271169]

thanks for the articels some good information in them

[Callatya]

Do remember though, if you use Prime or Ammolock or similar, that although they will detoxify ammonia you will still get ammonia readings from your test kit. Most home test kits measure total ammonia, not free ammonia, so even the detoxified stuff will show up. If you know that the product you've used locks ammonisa and that your tank is cycled, then you should be pretty confident that it is a false positive.

Another thing you may want to look at is aging the water overnight after you treat it. When you use the products that include dechloraminate, you will end up with ammonia by default. When the water treatment product breaks the bonds on the chloramine, it gives you chlorine and ammonia. The dechlorinator gets rid of the chlorine problem, but the ammonia remains. At that point, although aging it won't do a great deal, I find that the readings decrease if I age it overnight. It also gives the pH a chance to stabilise too :)