peewee1 is right. I just went through this when restarting my discus tank in March of this year after an 8 year of vacation. Yes an API ammonia test will show water with chloramine to be positive for ammonia. My tap water test 1 ppm before Prime and 1 ppm with Prime and aged 24+ hrs. This is what it seems to come down to.
I run a bare bottom 125 gallon tank with a fluvial fx5 filter with foam filter sponge and stuffed full of Biohome Filter Media any media will work. With a homemade carbon filter in one end of the tank. I used Angle fish and added nitrifying bacteria to get the bio filer working. I had real bad spikes and did 50% water changes every 48hrs. After 6 weeks thing started to fall into line. I changed water last night with the water showing 1 ppm ammonia. My readings right now are 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and 5ppm nitrate I change water to control the nitrate. Plants in the tank would help control nitrate but I am too lazy to have a planted tank.
With any fish tank you must have a working bio-filter give it time to work or change a lot of water.
Good luck hope this helps
Deadwood (Les)
I have seen the wonders hidden in Kenny’s garage