ammonia in sydney water!!!!

[mas]

hey, i posted a thread earlier to-day wondering about what to do about this, but i was just at my local lfs picking up some crickets and while i was there got them to test the tap water.. the test came back with 0.50 ppm ammonia as well.. so it seems that at least the hornsby area has some problems.. might be worth checking before the next water change??

update.. i just called them up and apparently thats about normal.. sydney water said they measured about 0.40 ppm from what they add to it for some reason.. though id never noticed it that high coming out from the tap before though.. poor fishes :( i should really age and filter my water properly before adding it to the tanks :(

[dreamer]

my tap water (CBD area) is alright, at least according to my test kit :D

[nalah]

with the drought,our dams are low and all the scum at the bottom is moving around.
they are adding chems at the moment so be careful - age your water. i filter it thru carbon as a precaution. and TEST your stored water prior to adding to tanks of course.

what water conditioner are you using??

there may be chems in water but should be no amonia reading. i have been testing tap water regularly.

I'll ask one of the mods to answer this.

[RandalB]

Hi all,
I got a message regarding this post, What exactly is the question? I'll be happy to answer if I can.

Is it about how to deal with the Ammonia or what your water company is adding to the water?


Regards,
RandalB

[nalah]

Hi Randall..and thanks.
under normal circumstances,you'd do heaps of wc to lower amonia. but what if he is getting a reading straight from the tap. what does he do??

[RandalB]

It seems to me that there are a couple of things he can do:
IMHO of course.....

1) Use Amquel or something similar (prefilter through zeolyte,etc) to make the ammonia harmless prior to W/C's

2) Use a RO/DI unit to decrease the amount of ammonia in the water (won't completely eliminate but will decrease the concentration)

3) Store the water with an operating cycled sponge filter prior to use. Will add nitrate but eliminate Ammonia.


Does anyone know if .5 PPM ammonia is a harmful concentration?. By harmful I mean immediately damaging. I know ammonia is not a good thing at any concentration.

The ammonia should be processed by the existing biofilters in Mas's tanks how long it will take and will his fish be damaged by the ammonia before it takes place is the question from me.

Mas I assume that you are using a biofilter of some type.


Hope this helps, and just my $0.02
RandalB

Well, I'll say it again, buy a product that neutralizes chloramine.

[RandalB]

Yep, see #1 in my previous post.



RandalB

[nalah]

thanks Randall.
i just prefer not to mouth off as i am only new to all this myself.

[mas]

hey everyone, thanks for the tips.. i tested the water again yesterday and to-day, and it still shows up as 0.50, (the third colour down on the freshwater chart in the aquarium pharmaceuticals test kit) the test itself isnt broken as one of my tanks show up fine..

i have a tiny tank outside not worth putting any fish in.. perhaps setting that up with an overflow filter and zeolite seems the way to go.. just sucks that i have to do that now :) earlier this year it was fine.

yeh its pretty bad, i think the ammonia at least could stress the discus and make them grow slower.. they're swimming around happy and eating but the stressbars are showing on most of the fish (and i think they shouldnt be stressed :)).

im using aquaplus, i heard from an lfs they dont use chloromine in the water here and i can get it cheaper than prime.. anyone know if sydney water uses chloromine?

will look into amquel.. is that like ammolock (supposedly turns ammonia into nontoxic ammonia)?

thanks again,
.marcus

edit. yeh im using an eheim 2028 and a rena xp 3 (or4) cant remember on the 6 foot tank.

[mas]

whoohooo!!! just tested my big tank and the ammonia is between 0 and 0.25!! yesss!!!!!!!!! the wonderful bacteria have finally caught up!!!! :bounce2: cheers for bacteria!!!!! :sun: will sleep easier to-night.

another idea would be to do less but more frequent water changes.. think i can get away with that? :))

[RandalB]

More frequent less volume water changes will give the biofilter time to convert that nasty ammonia. I am still wondering about the saftey level for ammonia content. I know I have had spikes in tanks where the only way I found out that ammonia was present was via a test kit. The fish were not showing any signs of discomfort. All I recall was the concentrations were below 1 PPM.

Amquel is similar to ammolock just more common in my LFS.

You also might want to keep an eye on the Nitrate levels.

Hope this helps,
RandalB

your water company will tell you what they use in the water and maybe the source of the ammonia in your water straight from the tap. Call, ask for the lab, ask them. More reliable than asking your lfs guy. Nothing against him personally, I'm sure he's a wonderful, knowledgeable person.

[mas]

yeh, adding water with ammonia would be silly for nitrates.. if water changes are mainly for removing them adding ammonia at the same time doesnt sound like it would help the issue :) i honestly want to avoid storing water if i can.. the tanks are enough work as it is and im kinda broke right now, would much rather change a small amount every other day.

with ammonia ive read and heard various things.. im sure all agree that none is the best, especially since the waters where discus originate apparently have no ammonia at all.. when my ammonia was at 0.5 my discus seemed to be fine, everyone was as hungry as always and didnt appear to be sulking.. i did notice more stress bars than usual, but since its gotten better they're still there, so it probably something else with them. will watch them over the next few weeks to see whats up. was also chatting to an old disus breeder a while back who claimed he was breeding them for 20 years and did water changes only every 6 weeks! perhaps it depends on what the fish are used to from when they're young.. if they've acclimatised to some ammonia in the water then perhaps they more tolerant to it?

how common is it for discus to seeming behave normal and swim around with stress bars? at trans, ive tanks where the whole tank has none, and the tank next to it every fish seemed "stressed".. my fish are small still.. they hardly bully each other save during feeding times.. there arent any other fish in the tank that worry them.. could it be the ph 7? i also have a bit current running through my tanks.. will try changing that around too.

yeh i should call them up again, after being transferred a few times the people at sydney water were pretty helpful.

thanks again for the ideas,
.marcus