ammonia in my tap water!!!!! HELP!!!

jjbene2 · 09-28-2008, 12:40 AM

Hello all again
My issue again is ammonia, my tank is 55 gallon malawian cichlids,filter is fluval 305 with uv sterilizer. I have been having an ammonia and nitrite spike with no explanation, I cycled the tank for 1 1/2 weeks and then slowly added fish, all levels were at zero before adding fish and after until 2 days ago I woke to a cloudy tank. My levels were 7.8 ph 1.0 ammonia and 0.5 nitrite.The first day I did a 25% water change and the next day my ph dropped to 7.4, ammonia and nitrite unchanged, so the next day I did another 25% water change. Then the levels were still unchanged so I added buffer to help the ph. Tonite the ammonia is at 2.0 but the nitrite is 0 and my ph is 8.0. So I scratched my head and thought I'd test the ammonia in my tap water..... lo and behold my tap water has a 0.75 ammonia level........... SO the big question is what do I do about that? Im adding ammonia to the tank with every water change? Am I making them sick by doing this and who elese has this problem and what do I do? Also why do I have ammonia in my tap?
Im getting frustrated, I haven't lost any fish yet, and tonite the water is crystal clear so I am begging you all for some serious HELP!!!!!!!!!
Thanks in advance!
Julie

LiVe4fIsH · 09-28-2008, 02:03 AM

Welcome to my life! I was in your shoes when I was first starting out in this hobby. My water source at my house is infested with ammonia. My house was built quite a bit ago, and all of the pipes that are hooked up to my house are old and need repair. To make a long story short, the only way I got around this problem is that I completely switched over to RO water. I now use RO water for everything that has to do with my tank. The bright side of using RO water is that you know that it is super clean, but you must add nutrients back into the water in order for the fish to survive. I would not use your water source anymore and test another faucet in your house because it might only be the pipes to that outlet. If your whole place is bad, try a neighbors. If all else fails, your going to have to find a place in front of a market or so, that you can pay for RO water. I fill up at a place that charges only 20cents a gallon. If you would like more details of what brands I use and how to boost your pH back up after the drop with RO water and what nutrients to use to put back into the water let me know. If you can put your fish into another tank with treated water, and then you can drain your tank and go from there. Good luck and let me know if you need any more info on what to do. You can also go to your LFS and purchase tap water from there.

-Izzy