warning on tap water

hey all
been having a ruff couple of weeks with my tanks at home, could not understand why i have been picking up disease and fish not eating.
water test have always been okay before water changes, but my ammonia levels have been studly building.
i in general do at least a 50% water change a week as a minimum with more if i require.
been doing a 30% change every 2 days while treating one fish for hole in the head, and ammonia level where still climbing, my ray tank ammonia also was climbing after 2 50% water changes in 5 days.
ammonia level in both tanks where 0,05ppm
was at this point i tested my tap water, 0,4ppm coming out of tap.
ammonia levels that high will kill my fish i think.
I live in greenstone johannesburg
what my plan is:
set up 3 1000ltr flow bin
first bin:
catch water from water changes, add water from tap remove chlorine chloromine using safe/prime
second bin:
have a canister filter full of zeolight and heavy aeration, remove all ammonia and prepare water for water change.
third bin:
12oooltr per hour pump to get glean water into tank and storage for water changes.


please test water going into your tanks with water restrictions i think things are going to get worse

 

Sjoe, 0,4ppm is very high, no wonder your fish were feeling sick.

I had a similar situation about 3 months ago, lost a few fishy friends and then started using 3 x recommended prime dose to get rid of chlorine and to bind the ammonia in non-toxic form.

The high levels of chloramine in tap water may end up forcing us to test water before every water change...

 

from my understanding aommonia bonding is a short term solution
and still need to remove the ammonia at some point

 

Thanks for sharing this! I live very close to greenstone so I'll also need to start checking for this before water changes too!

 

Very true!

I think Seachem Prime binds the ammonia for 72 hours max.

This is one of the reasons I'm running sumps on my tanks now, the +-5kg Bio-home-Ultimate and Alpha-Groc E25 houses more than enough beneficial-bacteria.

 

OMG got the same issue my JBL NH4 kit is showing 0.5ppm

Do you still have this issue ?

 

will see this afternoon but at last night i did yes

 

I think I am gonna do a test with my JBL NH4 kit and share the results

*I treated a 5l water bottle (closed lid) yesterday with SeaChem prime by the time I get home it will be over 24 hours
*I am going to boil water and do a test
*Test the RO water that I buy for R1.50

So far I know my aquarium is between 0.4-0.6 ppm and so is the tap water
My aquarium also has Ammonia Removing stones and Carbon which hasn't done much

 

Take note that although the ammonia is bound with Seachem Prime, you may still get a false positive reading.

In emergency situations I use Seachem AmGuard, which is very effective and has saved a lot of my fishy friends when ammonia spikes happens.

You can also use it to remove chloramines from water, although Prime has a few added benefits.

https://www.seachem.com/amguard.php

 

I have tried this, results on my Seachem Ammonia tester didnt really change so not sure if it works, The only thing that I think will resolve the situation is water changes with lowered ammonia

I am only doing the ammonia test on the treated water to share the results, maybe I will do one on treated water after 2 hours in a 5l bottle that is open

 

I was pointed at this discussion by @A new day . I am currently setting up a planted tank and my readings just keep getting worse and worse. A family member has also had mass fish deaths the last month and I think we might be onto the reason here. Will have to try find an alternative source of water.
Originally thought my test kit was faulty but I tested bottled water and came back totally clean so it looks like the tap water really is trashy.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

 

working on a plan now to generate clean water, hopefully have it up and running by tomorrow and from my success failures i recon forum members can scale up or down to there needs

 

ok I did the test, I will create a new thread and share the resuts

 

Yew this is scary
We already have to watch the chlorine and chloramine
Now still have to worry about ammonia too!!

 

I am currently on my last bottle of Seachem Prime, there after I'm switching to Seachem Safe which is much more concentrated and works out cheaper in the long run.

After testing various options, the 3 x recommended dose of Seachem Prime/Safe neutralises any issues with chloramines. Just make sure you have enough beneficial bacteria and plants to convert the bound ammonia to nitrites and then to nitrates.

If there is an ammonia spike in the tank use Seachem Ammonia Guard, alternatively use 5 x recommended dose of Seachem Prime. The downside of using Prime with a spike is that ammonia readings will still show false positives.

I do 25% water changes every 14 days on my tanks and the fish are happy and spawning like crazy. I stopped removing the eggs because I am running out of tanks xD. All excess snails are donated to the local pet shop to play with the clowns

Chlorine and ammonia levels don't even register when testing but nitrates are a different story, hopefully the anaerobic bacteria will be established in a few more months.

I try to keep the pH stable between 7 and 7.2 to lessen possible effects of ammonia spikes and keep the beneficial bacteria happy.

The following is an interesting read regarding the direct relation between pH and ammonia.

https://petcentral.chewy.com/the-role-of-ph-in-the-aquarium-nitrogen-cycle/

South Australian Water also released some good to know facts regarding the use of water with high levels of chloramines for aquariums.

http://www.aquasol.org/uploads/7/0/7/0/70700977/chloramines.pdf

 

thank you this was helpful. water coming out of my taps is 8.2ph so the ammonia is lethal
will post a few picks of what i have set up. hoping i get home to 900ltr of ammonia nitrate and nitrite free water.

 

What I have done so far
Move from prime to seachem alpha
Have a 3000ltr per hour canister filter full of clinofish zeolite to remove ammonia hooked up to a flow bin.
Added 10 bags of lava rock to filter
Added 5ltr of zeolight to both filters

 

it aint pretty but really need it to start working fast
i am on day 6 of baby ray not eating

 

do a 50 percent water change with RO water

Should help as its very low in ammonia but it will need other suppliments