New Aquarium Questions

As others have said, ammonia in your tap water is not a good thing. Not even for humans. So I would call your local water authorities (as others have mentioned) and explain to them that you are seeing fairly concentrated amounts of ammonia in your tap water and that you'd like to know "why" and "if thats part of the filtration system".

...I can tell you right now, it shouldn't be part of filtering the water, however you need to investigate and see what they say. They do have an obligation to provide you with clean (safe) water. :)
 
Actually, if there is ammonia in the tap water it could be a sign of chloramines. They'll register up to (and maybe beyond) 1 ppm of ammonia. When the water is treated with a simple dechlorinator (e.g., sodium thiosulfate) the ammonia is freed from the chlorine. Even before treatment, though, it will show up on ammonia tests. It's been a while since I test our chloraminate water, but I recall getting lower readings of ammonia before treatment, higher readings after treatment, but positive readings for ammonia both times.

Obviously, if this isn't municipally-treated water (e.g., if it is well water), then any ammonia would be cause for concern.

The other readings... pH of 10 ... sound pretty bogus to me, too. Unless you live in the bottom of a limestone quarry and get your water from a spring that filters thru limestone gravel...

HTH,
Jim
 
thank you everyone for all your help. i am going to try the fishless cycling and see what happens. i can get a piece of used filter from someone but do you simply place it in the tank or elsewhere, like on the new filter? also, i have a ready supply of pure ammonium hydroxide. would it be best to use it to raise the ammonia levels to 5 ppm?
thanks again
 
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Water conditioner?

You still need to know about the chlorine or chloramine. This is a vital bit of info.

Then, what water conditioner did you use?

I'll suppose that you used Stress Coat which seems to be every stores favorite conditioner (higher profit margin??) With chloramine in the water, this would have broken the chloramine bond and released ammonia, the ammonia would be bound up but still read on tests most likely.

The test you used, was it Nessler based test or Salycilate based test? Nessler will read all ammonia, Salicylate will read only harmful ammonia.

OTOH, if you used a water conditioner that does not detox chloramine, the chloramine would be brokne into chlorine and ammonia, the chlorine removed and the ammonia still there to do damage, unbound.

So, you can see why the questions are so important.

Chlorine or chloramine? What water conditioner?
 
ok, i am just learning so please bear with me. i have not used a stress coat yet just the water conditioner(biosafe tap water detoxifier according to the bottle is suppose to detoxifies ammonia, clorine and chloramine and is compatible with test kits that use salicylate reagents. the test kit i used was the freshwater master test by aquarium pharmaceuticals inc.
and according to the instruction book is salicylate based. hope this helps :D
 
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To answer an earlier question, yes, 5 ppm ammonia is a proper dosing. Some people cut back their ammonia by half once they start getting nitrites, but others (including me) keep dosing to 5 ppm.

Good for you for cycling without fish!

Jim
 
man, oh man, am I confused. I remember when I was about 8 years old and mamma just put the fish in the water, gave them food, and they lived forever. lol
my wife looked at some of the fishless cycling links and they say that before putting the fish in the water you need to do a 50-80% water change to eliminate nitrites. now, I know I'm a newbie to this, but if I do a water change, put the tap water detoxifier into the new water to remove chlorine, and put the new water into the tank, won't I be starting back at about square 1? and I'm still not sure where I should put the piece of filter media from an established tank (inside tank itself, or with new filter in it's case)?
sorry for being an idiot with this, but I just want to know exactly what to do to keep from killing any fish and wasting time and money.
thank you very much
 
No, you wouldn't be back to square one. In fishless cycling, after the cycle is complete, a large water change (I do 90% or more) is conducted to remove nitrAtes (not nitrites, which should be at zero ppm after the cycle completes).

That large water change doesn't hurt anything because the benefical bacteria aren't in the water; they adhere to surfaces, like the media in your filter, on the walls of the tank and on the gravel. Change water just removes pollutants.

HTH,
JIm
 
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