Quarantine Med Trio - Do I Perform a Water Change If Tap Water Has .25-.5PPM Ammonia?

[teesquared]

Hi there folks,

Happy Sunday! I was about to do a water change on my 2.5 month old cycled tank, when I noticed there's .25-.50 PPM of Ammonia showing up via my API test kit from my tap water, yikes! I tested the water in the tank and it's showing up as 0 Ammonia / 0 Nitrite / 0 Nitrate. I just completed the 1-week preventative round of the quarantine trio today (I put the meds in the water last Sunday). Based on AC's instructions, I should perform a 25-30% water change after completing the week...but I don't know what to do now. Should I do a PWC, knowing there's .25-.5PPM ammonia coming straight out of the tap, or wait and test the tap water again after a couple days? It usually shows up as 0PPM ammonia from the tap, but I'm assuming due to the changing of seasons water parameters are shifting as well. Any advice / thoughts on this are appreciated, thank you!

*EDIT* - Adding in water parameters:

Ammonia: 0 in the tank
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: 0
pH: 7.4
KH / GH: 71.6 PPM
Temp: 77.5

Edited March 7, 2021 by teesquared
Forgot to add full water parameters

[darkG]

I think a cycled tank should be able to digest that extra ammonia 🙂

[Kirsten]

Mmm, I'm on the fence. On the one hand, your tank's already got a good cycle going and it could probably handle it. On the other hand, some of those meds can put a dent in your biofilter. So, I say, if it's a small tank (like 20g or less) I might mix some of that tap water with distilled water. If it's a bigger tank, I'd just use tap water and condition with something like Fritz Complete to detoxify that ammonia.

[teesquared]

Thanks folks! It's a 29 gallon moderately/heavily planted non-CO2 tank with moderate lighting. Plants are java fern, anubias nana, barteri, and coffetolia, ludwigia repens, red root floaters, pogostemon stellatus octopus, crypt wendtii bronze and green, crypt lutea, micro swords, dwarf aquarium lily, bucephalandra godzilla, and hydrocotyle tripartita 'Japan', baby tears, green ozelot sword, and amazon sword. The plants would draw out the ammonia and use it for themselves as well right?

[darkG]

Kirsten makes a good point.

Still, 25% x at most 0.5 ppm doesn't amount to much.

An alternative to water conditioner is to put a plant in the water to suck some up.

But! If the tap water is suddenly unusual in this respect, maybe there is something else wrong as well? 

[teesquared]

Great call! I just tested for nitrites and nitrates from the tap and they're both showing up as 0. Looks like ammonia is the only outlier...ok cool, i will go ahead with the water change as planned then, and definitely making sure to add in Fritz Complete (I usually use Prime, but I hear Fritz is better?). Thank you both!

[Kirsten]

11 minutes ago, teesquared said:

Great call! I just tested for nitrites and nitrates from the tap and they're both showing up as 0. Looks like ammonia is the only outlier...ok cool, i will go ahead with the water change as planned then, and definitely making sure to add in Fritz Complete (I usually use Prime, but I hear Fritz is better?). Thank you both!

I think both of those take care of ammonia, so you should be good to go!