Ammonia in tap water

[Markp2483]

So had some sick fish. Spooled up a qt tank. Ran the fish through meds (1 week). Water changed started feeding food . Tested water noticed a little ammonia so water changes ( end of week two). Today noticed the fish were not as good as they were before yesterday waterchange. Tested water and found ammonia.  Did a big water change and fish immediately did not like it. Lost one and the other one still super stressed out.  Tested the qt water 2.0 ammonia.  How could that be just changed 90% water. Tested tap water at least 2.0+ ammonia.  
I live in Costa Mesa, California and on city water. I change water by pumping water into 20 gallon trash can, match temp with a digital thermometer and treat with accr. I run a pump in the trash can for recirculation before pumping into tank. This is the first time that I’ve had this problem.  Have others had this problem?  What’s the solution? Yell at the town? kdf filter? Super bummed had both fish near 100% and then this happens.

image below is straight out of the tap

[CT_]

Yikes. This does happen.  I'd email your local water district.  Mine is pretty responsive to questions.

[Pepere]

I have 1 ppm ammonia chronically in my tap water.  Water district tried flushing lines as that can sometimes happen if there is not much flow in the mains and chlorine gets depleted.

 

in my case, flushing dies nothing.  Apparently I am too close to the mixing plant where ammonia is mixed in to react with chlorine and make chloramines.  I get the water before it converts.

doing water changes it isnt a problem as we see less than 0.5 ppm ammonia from a water change and it gets metabolized out in 8-10 hours.

Where it can be a problem is in quarantine, med tanks when meds wipe out the beneficial bacteria.  In that case I take water from a display tank to refill quarantine tank water change.  And tap water into display tank.. sort of a cascading water change.

 

Less than ideal, but it is what I do.

 

alternatively you could put water in a 30 gallon trash can and have a cycled filter in it to metabolize the ammonia…

 

or perhaps the district can make your issue go away with a flush of the lines…

[Markp2483]

Ordered a growonix hydroponic filter with kfd85 filter supposedly that will remove chloramine and ammonia. Will mount that to my trash can mixing container.  Hopefully that will do the trick for now. 
 

also emailed my water department.  Will post there reply here

[Matt B]

I think I'm going to test my tap water tomorrow out of curiosity. 🤔   I can only recall testing it about 8 months ago. It will be interesting to see if anything has changed and hopefully if so,  nothing to extreme.  

[Markp2483]

Yeah this is the first time I’ve found ammonia in my tap water all other tests have been zero. I probably last checked my tap water a year or two ago. You get those first couple of positive results and think your good.

[Markp2483]

Reply for town below whole lot of nothing. Also talked to my lfs and he says it happens.   

"Good morning Mark,

 

Thank you for reaching out to the City of Newport Beach Utilities department.  I am sorry to hear about your fish.  We have not changed anything within our system.  We make great efforts to maintain consistency with our water quality.  Every year, the dialysis centers in the City of Newport Beach will contact us asking if changes are to be made that we notify them.  Nothing have changed recently nor will it in the foreseeable future.

 

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

 

Have a good day.

 

Best,"

[Pepere]

You could ask them to test for residual chlorine levels at your location. If the chlorine is depleted that would account for the ammonia and flushing the mains would likely resolve it.

However,   Where you are storing water in a trash can before putting it in your tank, running a well cycled sponge filter in that water should easily metabolize the ammonia in under 24hours…

[Markp2483]

Hi Pepere

I think your right about the chlorine.  I get virtually nothing when i test for chlorine.  Seems like something is off with there chloramine system.  I only temporally hold the water in the trash can.  This was just to  get the temp right (mixing hot and cold)  and was for making sure the accr got mixed in before adding to tank.  Already order the kdf85 filter so that should solve the ammonia and chlorine problem in the future. My thought process was it was easier to get a better water filter than to have to wait 24hrs to have useable water. And i would have to heat the water up to tank temp in the garage which has been in the 40's and 50's.  Cold temp would also slow down bacteria ammonia uptake.  no option is ideal

    

 

[Pepere]

On 3/6/2023 at 5:15 PM, Markp2483 said:

Seems like something is off with there chloramine system. 

There really is not a chloramine system as you or I would envision it..  They chlorinate the water and inject ammonia.  The ammonia reacts with the chlorine in the distribution system to form chloramines…

I live too close to the injection site so I have 1 ppm ammonia all of the time.

 

If you are distant, and near the end of a line, and the water gets a bit stagnant the chlorine can be depleted and ammonia is released.

in this case, flushing the mains takes care of the issue for a fairly long time.

in general, water districts are fairly responsive to trying to resolve this by flushing the lines. If yours is not, perhaps calling the state with your concern would increase their responsiveness.

 

my guess is that running a well cycled sponge filter would be far cheaper than running a commercial filter.  What is the cost of the filter and what is the expected life of it?

Edited March 6 by Pepere

[Markp2483]

Agree with everything but I’m impatient and would rather water on demand (stuff happens) plus wife doesn’t want any more tanks even if they are temporary-ish. Filter was 130 last 6-8months and the replacement is 25 for the kdf cartridge and sediment is 8. Not the cheapest solution but live in a small apartment. 

[Louise02]

So sorry that this happened to you.  When our new fish kept dying we eventually discovered the same issue.  Now we haul in RO water for every change.

[Pepere]

On 3/6/2023 at 11:50 PM, Markp2483 said:

Agree with everything but I’m impatient and would rather water on demand

When I do water changes in my display tank, I never worry about it.  My tap water has 1 ppm ammonia. If I do a 25% water change and the tank has 0.25 ppm ammonia after the water change and is gone by evening.  Even a 50% water change would see 0.5 ppm ammonia and gone by evening.

My only concern is if I have a quarantine tank that has the beneficial bacteria affected by quarantine meds.  When that happens, I use water from my display tank to water change my quarantine tanks.