I tested my water last night because I have a oranda with a split pectoral fin that I am trying to mend and want my water pristine to help him heal. Well my amonia was 1.0 . Nitrite .25- Nitrate 0 and ph 7.8.
Well I did a 25 percent water change last night added prime and salt and waited to the test the water till this morning . this mornings test I got amonia 1.0 -nitrite 0- nitrate 0 ph 8.4. Well that got me thinking and I tested my tap water straight from the tap and found it had 1.0 amonia-nitrite 0- nitrate 5.0 and ph 8.4. imagine my shock to find I had amonia in the tap water. So I have some Ice Mountain Spring Water at home. I tested the spring water and found it had- amonina 0, nitrite 0,nitrate 0 and ph of 7.6 I have been adding prime to the water and the amonia level has stayed at 1.0. So i think this next water change I will be using spring water. May be more expensive but better that pouring amonia water in their tank.

Does anyone know how to get the amonia out of my tap water? I have been doing daily water changes and testing . My amonia has been remaining at 1.0 and my nitrates are up to 20. The nitrites remain 0. Since my tap water contains 1.0 amonia right out of the tap. I use prime and have been putting extra in but my amonia level stays at 1.0 I also bought a purigen filter bag to add to my whisper charcoal filter to help boost it's perfomance. I even tried using spring water this weekend for water change . I want to drop the amonia level especially since I am trying to heal a split fin on one of my fish.

You shouldnt add bottled water as it contains minerals and metals. Have you read the analysis label on the bottle?

I dont know how you can get rid of ammonia from the tap water, maybe an RO unit possibly but I would be on the phone to my water company complaining.

How are the fish acting?

Now I may be wrong, but I seem to remember hearing that the addition of chloramine to domestic water creates an ammonia reading. My tap water often has ammonia (sometimes .50) and nitrite - not to mention sky high nitrate - but Prime seems to do the trick. It seems odd that the Prime isn't reducing the ammonia for you, as in conjunction with the bacteria in the filter etc. I would expect it to convert.
Maybe a call to water company wouldn't hurt.

Thanks for the help. I have been keeping a fish log like one of the members mentioned on here and noticed that my amonia and nitrates spiked when I add tap water. I did do a straight from the tap water test and found the amonia at 1.0 and the nitrates at 5.0, and ph 8.4. I was wondering since I am adding prime to the water if the amonia test is giving me a false positive . Maybe the prime is working but the test is registering that . In my test kit instructions it mentioned that if you add Amquel it would give a false positive to the results. I also added one of those purigen filter bags to the back of my topfin 40 ( same as a whisper filter) to help . I tried using spring water from Wallyworld this weekend but after I tested it straight from the bottle it turns out it has 5.0 nitrate in it,0 amonia, 0 nitrite. After I did the water change with it my nitrates went up to 20 and my amonia spiked to 2. I did a test on Ice Mountain Spring Water and found that it was pretty pure-7.6 ph, amonia-0 , nitrites 0, and nitrates 0. So I did a 12 gallon water change with ice mountain spring water yesterday and just added 0.3 percent salt , it dropped my params down to ph 7.6, amonia 0.25, nitrites 0 and nitrates 5.0. My nitrite reading has always been 0. Hence my confusion. I live in an apartment complex that pays for our water and sewer bill. I am going to call the leasing office to let them know what I found. I drink the ice mountain too .

The levels of ammonia you mention in your tap water will be neutralised by the recommended dosage of Prime.

The trick is that Prime doesn't remove the ammonia, it just de-toxifies it so it is harmless, that's why you still get an ammonia reading in your tank after using Prime. The ammonia is still there but it's de-toxified.

thanks Fishmerized . I just could not figure out why when I was adding prime my amonia was up but that explains it. That also explains why it keeps showing up when I do the amonia test. I am trying to keep my water pretty pristine to help Flame's split fin heal. Thanks again

No worries, they don't explain that on the instructions, it's just information that I picked up here on Kokos. You never stop learning on here.

how about adding distilled water? its just pure H2O

No I thought of that, but the distilled water I tested had nitrates and nitrites in it. Plus distilled is "nothing "water. They remove everything out of it during the distilling process including the beneficial minerals and electrolytes. Spring water has all the minerals in it but no Cholrine or anything else. But it depends on the brand. Spring Mountain has ph of 7.6 ,0 amonia, 0 nitrites, and 0 nitrates ( I know because I tested it) I called the Spring Mountain company a while back and spoke to a representative and he told me that their water does not contain cholrine or cholarmaine. Not all spring water is created equal though. I had some wallworld brand and it tested 5.0 for nitrates.

that is weird! being distilled...it should have NOTHING, just H20! surpriced they have nitrate and nitrite in there

I just spoke to the manager of my apartment complex and he said that once a year in the summer sometimes the water will have a funny smell to it ( I did not notice a smell though) and have amonia etc when the reservoir gets low. He said after it has rained some more that this goes away. I wonder if this is correct since the complex is on city water. We have been having really hot weather on the upper 90's with no rain lately till last night . I will wait a couple weeks and test it again .

Yup I know it is weird. Just goes to show you that if you should test your tap water and any bottled (spring water ) you use for changing water before adding it to the tank that way there won't be any unwelcome suprises. One of the moderators recently also mentioned ( I don't remember the thread it was in unfortunately or I would paste it to this thread for you) that if you use distilled water you have to replace all the electrolytes, minerals etc that the distilling process has removed before using it.