Ammonia high from what?

Hi everyone,
I have a 37 gal. that I plan on being a planted tank. So I have been buying stuff here and there. Still waiting to get the lighting. I wanted to get the driftwood waterlogged and test out the new SunSun 303b canister filter and get the the bio started. So I set up the tank a couple days ago with the old gravel that I had. In the filter trays I have filter pads, poly fill and lava rocks (bio). Cleaned the driftwood good and added it to the tank. Had to put a bag of rocks on the one piece to hold it down. Water was been cloudy so I tested the water, I do not have any fish in the tank yet. The ammonia was high, around 2.0 ppm. The nitrites 0, nitrates0, ph between 7.2-7.8, but the chlorine was 2.0!! When I filled the tank I added DeChlor.
When I get my light (Current USA Satellite Plus Pro 24"-36" LED) and plants, I will be switching the gravel to eco-complete topped with some black sand. I just set up the tank to make sure it didn't leak and to get the filter going and to get the driftwood ready.
Just wondering how the ammonia and chlorine would be so high without any fish or food?

thanks!!

FreshyFresh said:

You will probably continue to read ammonia until you build sufficient BB to process it. Can you load your Sunsun with some healthy, established media from another running tank?

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Well, I do have some bio balls in the wet/dry filter down stairs. I could replace some of those with some newer ones that I have laying around! The 55 gal. downstairs has been running for several years and has lots of rocks. So what do you think would be a safe amount that I could take from that filter without causing a problem to the host tank?

This is what I used to remove the chlorine, and I did add more than instructed! I've always used Prime in the past, but picked this up on a whim!

Rbishop said:

Dip strips of liquid test kits?

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For the ammonia, I used API's liquid test. For the others I use API's test strips. On my sons 20 gal. everything checks out good! I plan on getting a fresh water master test kit soon. I used to have one years ago and loved it!

Star_Rider said:

have you tested the source water??


I am guessing you use tap..if so you should get a container let it sit out over night and test that.
then add a bit of the de chlor and test it again(you prob won't need much de chlor)

outside of that you can get NH3/NH4 from the wood as well.. where did that come from??

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Yes, I did use tap water. I will try this and see what happens. I did not know that driftwood will affect NH3/NH4! Not really sure what kind of wood it is, got it from a LFS and it just said African driftwood. Here is a photo of it, maybe you or someone else can help me out with it!