Ammonia levels in water...

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MelissaT

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MelissaT
Hello,
Any suggestions on how to get the ammonia levels in my tankmdown safely?
I have read that frequent water changes work however I tested my tap water as well and found that the ammonia was a 2.0ppm. My tank is currently showing a 1.0ppm. Is there something I could add to the tap water to bring the ammonia down. If not is bottle water safe for Axolotls?

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Is your tank brand new? What size is your tank, and what do you have in it? You can use a tap water conditioner like Prime, and leave your water out for a while prior to putting it in the tank. Bottled water and RO water aren't generally used long term.

Now the immediate issue is what's in your tank? Either your tank isn't cycled, you have way too much organic matter/decomposition, and untreated water to begin with. Or any combination of those.

Are you just beginning to cycle an empty tank?
 
Since your tap water has a higher ammonia reading than your tank, it sounds like you have chloramine (chlorine and ammonia bonded together) in your water. Some places use chloramine instead of chlorine in the tap water.

If you have chloramine in the tap water, you will always need to use a chloramine/ammonia neutralizing water conditioner like Prime. If your tank is cycled, this isn't a big deal, but you will have ammonia after every water change until the cycle can eliminate it. Your nitrate will build up faster than it would otherwise too.

Even if you have chloramine in your tap water, Lori's questions still apply - is this a new tank? If not, how long has it been set up? What do you have in there?
 
Like the others said, you'll definitely need to use a treatment on the new tap water you're adding to your tank!
I personally use "Nutrafin Aqua Plus" and have had no issues with it! :)
Is your tank brand new, or have you cycled it yet? If your tank is still establishing a bacterial colony then your ammonia readings will be pretty high and therefore not a safe environment for any fish or axolotl!
Or like the others have mentioned, maybe your tank is overcrowded, you're feeding too much/too often and accumulating a lot of waste, or maybe you don't have adequate filtration for the animals in your tank and the size of the tank?
How many gallons is your tank and how many animals are in there now? :) And as well, if you could provide other parameters besides ammonia (such as nitrites and nitrAtes) it would be super helpful!
Good luck! :happy:
 
My tank is a 10 gal withave my one lotl in it. I have been testing the water almost every day and the readings are about the same
PH- between 7.3 and 7.6
Ammonia 1st
Nitrites 0ppm
Nitrates 0ppm

I did not cycle the tank before getting the my Adolf because like most rookies I didn't know I needed too. I now have 60 gallon that I amay cycling but in the mean time my focus is keeping the 10 gal happy for him.

I removed almost all the decorations from his tank today and found a ton of gunk so I did a 75% water change (with Prime for the new tap water) and clean the sand really well but when I checked my levels again the ammonia came back at a 2ppm!! Wilbert is not showing any signs of street but I'm freaking out! What could be Going on and what can I do to get these numbers down
 
If you are on the Virginia Beach water supply, you have chloramine in your water. Chloramine is chlorine and ammonia bonded together. When you treat the water with a water conditioner, it breaks the bond, and then you have ammonia in your water. http://www.vbgov.com/government/dep...lity/Documents/2015WaterQualityReportWEB2.pdf

The good new is that Prime will neutralize the ammonia, at least for a while. The other good news is you can also cycle a tank just by doing water changes to keep the ammonia up. (Yes, I did this once when I lived in an area with chloramine in the water. :happy:)

The bad news is that you need to always be sure to use a product like Prime, as chloramine is more stable that chlorine, and will damage axies and biofilters faster.

Once your tank is all the way cycled, you will still see an ammonia spike after a water change, but your biofilter will bring it down to 0 within a day, and the Prime will keep it safely tied up until then.
 
Good to know!! Thank you so much!!! :)

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