My water being weird

[Ilovebettas]

Hey so i have had my tank set up for 2 weeks now i have a little journal tracking my progress and today I popped up with .25 ammonia 0 nitrite and 5ppm nitrate i have had .25 ammonia for about a week now with no changes i have also tested my tap water and I keep getting .25 ammonia... i do not have access to rodi water and I have a 5 gallon lowtech planted tank that will be having one betta and maybe some amano shrimp in the future I used fritz fishless fuel and turbo start to boost my cycle and i cant figure out whats going on so any ideas?

[Ariel S]

your tap water is reading .25 ammonia? If it’s just your tank water then…

Sounds like your tank just needs more time to “season” / cycle. 
Do you have filtration? Sponges? some sort of bio media? Live Plants? 

you can keep water changing out the .25 ammonia if you’re very worried, but time is key. Products adding beneficial bacteria are great too but time time time is the fix. (And plants!) I would also hold off on feeding for a bit too. To help the beneficial bacteria keep growing since feeding will lead to more ammonia. 

Edited July 21, 2021 by Ariel S

[Ariel S]

If it’s your tap water (before adding to your tank), it’s likely that your water municipality is adding Chloramines to your water. This is common during hotter months. Same thing happens here. Chloramines don’t gas off like chlorine does. What you can try is to fill a bucket with tap water, add a declorinator like Seachem’s Prime and then test it the next morning and see what readings you get.  You could be getting inaccurate readings from the Chloramines. 

[Ilovebettas]

have already tried both but my ammonia never full went away even after waiing 48 hours for the chloramines... and I have tons of live plants and a filter haha