Ammonia in Well Water

[Vincenia]

I been having issues suddenly with fish dying out of the blue. I tested my tank, no ammonia in the tank. Decided to test my well water at random, it’s at 2.0 ppm Ammonia. I remember testing it a yr or two ago and having no ammonia in my well water. Going to pick up some Prime to deal with the ammonia. The fish I lost were an entire school of neons, 3 pictus catfish, and my blue angelfish. All other fish are doing fine. The fish that are doing well are my Snail, Blue ram, all my bettas, kuhli loaches, guppies, and pleco. I have alerted my grandmother about the ammonia in the well water, it’s not normal for it to have ammonia.

Is using Prime my best option till the issue is fixed?

 

[dudley]

So sorry for your losses!!

Are you in a farming or industrial area? Had a lot of rain or flooding in your location? Is the well cap compromised somehow that allows surface water or contaminants into the well?

Prime should work as a temporary fix to bind the ammonia in the tank until the BB can utilize it. You may also want to look into using an ion exchange zeolite type media, at least according to the Water Quality Association's website on Ammonia in source water.

 

[Vincenia]

I live near a farm and have a hay field right next to the house. I had alerted my grandma about the ammonia in the water and she is going to get someone to look into it. I’m going to pick up Ptime and Ammocarb for the extra media trays. It may be because the farm put stuff down for next years crop. It did rain and snow the last few weeks.

 

[#Crabs]

Good Luck with that

 

[FreshyFresh]

I know 2ppm sounds scary, but would that amount really kill fish suddenly?

Perhaps when the water is first added, the amount of ammonia spikes way higher until the beneficial bacteria in the tank can process it into nitrate.

 

[Vincenia]

Maybe takes a couple days for fish to die from the sudden spike. But it gets turned into Nitrates quickly in the tank say a hr or so after a water change. Neons I know are finicky so the sudden spike could have harmed them. I still picked up prime and zeolite just to play it safe.

 

[FreshyFresh]

I'd sample some well water after it sits over night and see how it reads.

My personal take is it's not ammonia that's killing them, but there's lots of unknowns.

 

[Vincenia]

All my other fish are doing fine. I either got bad stock or the sudden ammonia spikes. I always had issues with neons except for when I got them for my 55 gallon years ago, the last one had died a few weeks ago after I gave them to my dad. Gonna do another test on the tank later tonight to check the parameters.