Ammonia Exposure

[hitman12131976]

Would exposure to Ammonia at the level of 0.25 be bad for fish for about two hours? The reason why I ask is because I put tap water in my fish tank today, treated, of course. After I did that, I noticed Ammo go from 0 to 0.25. This water was added after a 40%+ water change and gravel vac. I figured it was just some residue from the gravel vac, but I re-tested my tap water. It turns out that my tap water is at Ammo 0.5!!! I quickly siphoned out about 6 gallons in my 20 gallon tank (which only holds about 15 gallons of water). I purchased some drinking water which was at Ammo 0 and put it in.

The rest of the readings from the tap water were fine, just the Ammo was high. Any harm in exposing them for two hours?

[Mocha Jive]

I do know ammonia readings of 1.0 and more can cause gill damage but I think you dealt with it pretty fast that it's fine may have stressed them for a bit but it should be alright.

[Mgamer20o0]

should be ok. when fish cycling you should stay under .25ppm ammonia and that some times is like that for weeks.

[hitman12131976]

After the WC my parameters are:

Ammo 0
Trites 0
Trates 5
pH 7.8
Temp 78

Looks like all is back to normal. Cycle still in tact. Phew.

[Denzil]

I have a liquid formula called (fresh start) when changing water But more important to your question, I use another Liquid called (Safe water). Which removes harmful ammonia and nitrite.Plus it boosts the biological filters. SO IT SAYS!!!! Just be careful that when cleaning the gravel that you dont test straight after a water change, All the fish waste ect. That didnt get syphoned out needs to settle.

[nickmcmechan]

what dechlorinator do you use?

some only break the chlorine and ammonia bond to get rid of chloramide. the chlorine then dissappears by means of the dechlorinating agent which leaves a trace of ammonia.

prime does the same, but makes the ammonia safe for the fish (so you would still get a small positive reading, however now the ammonia is safe) but still makes it tasty for the hungry bacteria

[J double R]

yep, just use some prime and wc away! :)

[Rbishop]

Another vote for Prime. Takes all the worries away. Just test your tap every once in a while to see what base levels of ammonia you are working with, it will change up at times.

[hitman12131976]

I use AquaSafe by Tetra to condition the water. Yesterday, when I noticed the Ammo was at 0.25 I put AmQuel+ to try to neutralize the Ammo level. The Trites stood at 0 and the Trates stood at 5, but I just put AmQuel+ to be safe while I went out and got some Glacier drinking water from the vending machines. Supposedly the water is RO water.

[hitman12131976]

I have a liquid formula called (fresh start) when changing water But more important to your question, I use another Liquid called (Safe water). Which removes harmful ammonia and nitrite.Plus it boosts the biological filters. SO IT SAYS!!!! Just be careful that when cleaning the gravel that you dont test straight after a water change, All the fish waste ect. That didnt get syphoned out needs to settle.

Yes, I wait about 1 hour.

[yourchoice]

My tap water is .25 sometimes close to .50 ammonia.After a 25% water change the ammonia is nowhere to be found.The cycle converts(eats) it instantly and the tank water will read zero ammonia.

[hitman12131976]

I waited the hour or so and the ammonia was still present. After I did another 40% water change the Ammonia level was 0.

[Soulcoffr]

I'm sure your local water supplier is using chloramines to treat the water. This is a compound of chlorine and ammonia. When you treat for chlorine, it breaks the bond and you're left with ammonia. Treatments like Prime and some others bind the ammonia, changing it into ammonium which is relatively harmless, but still available to your nitrifying bacteria.

Some test kits will pick up on this ammonium and give you a "false" reading... At least for our purposes. As far as the test kit is concerned, there's still ammonia in the tank, but the fishes just don't notice it.

It seems that you have an established tank, so any ammonia you might introduce via water changes should be taken care of by your tank in short order.

That's the tricky thing about water departments and chloramine. They can switch from straight chlorine to chloramine *at any time* and they don't have to give warning.

I currently live in a city that just uses chlorine, but I'm going to treat with Prime anyway because there may come a day when they'll switch and I won't know it.

[hitman12131976]

Good to know. At this we site

http://www.glacierwater.com/quality.htm

They show what the water goes through. I may have to buy the water, but at least it's treated properly.

[Soulcoffr]

I think you'll find that the vast majority of people here just fill their tanks with plain old tap water. There's nothing wrong with it, even if the water company uses chloramines. Chloramines are used to keep the water safe to drink on the way to your house.

As long as you treat for the water chemicals, you'll have no issues. Buying bottled water is prohibitively expensive and unless you're going for a specific type of water, like rift lake cichlids, you don't need to go to that extreme.

[hitman12131976]

My tap water is rated for Ammo @ 0.5 - 0.75. So what you're telling me is that if I just put tap water (with this Ammo rating) and treat the water (with AmQuel+ which helps neutralize the Ammonia, Nitrites, Nitrates, etc) then the Ammonia will eventually cycle out? I would hate to put tap water and then the ammonia never leaves.

[nickmcmechan]

i'm not familiar with amquel, but with the appropriate dose of Seachem Prim it will be fine

[hitman12131976]

I'll try that next time. The last water change read the ammonia level at 0.25 after two hours. I got concerned at the reading and did another water change with drinking water to be safe. I'll try that next time.

[yourchoice]

Perhaps if you`re doing a 40% start with a 20% then another 20% later.