Koi Fish Information Centre

Lenny, does that vary with the amount of chloramine in the water? Austin’s city tap water quality reports say that there is 2.2 (range to 2.4) ppm chloramine and .5 ppm ammonia. My own tests of the ammonia in hte tap water are consistent with that. That would have to come from breakdown of chloramines in the water, right? I didn’t specifically ask, but they wouldn’t be introducing ammonia from another source?
On I think another list, someone who was having real trouble with ammonia in a goldfish tank wrote that her water tested at 1.0 ppm of ammonia right out of the tap.
I am seriously getting alot of warnings from fish store owners and neighbors with aquariums about ammonia in the water around here. Also about sky high chloramine levels. The kind of water some people treat with two conditioners - though in this case I can see no point in adding a second conditioner that doesn’t get rid of ammonia.
Since I can’t seem to get my ammonia levels much under .25 and my nitrite levels are steadily rising - someplace between 1 and 2.0 today - I do need to make sure I’m not adding it with the water. My research found that hte bacteria that convert nitrites to nitrates will not work in the presence of ammonia, which is why nitrites don’t spike until after ammonia spikes.
Now, I must say that it is darned hard to read those API ammonia test results. Their yellow and yellow-green are impossible to tell apart in practice, adn so are their two shades of yellow-green. I expect yellow to not look greenish, maybe that is wrong. I did have nitrate level of 5.0, which ought to be impossible if ammonia > 0 if the bacteria won’t process nitrites in the presence of ammonia, so maybe the yellow-green is really yellow.
Actually the water comes out of the tap with a pH of 9.0. Not kidding - one wonders why on earth I have to take actual antacid. According to the city’s water quality reports. My pH kit only measures to 8.8 - and that’s what it gets. I bubble air through it and get it to 7.9 before I put it in the tank, and it’s been testing at 7.4 to 7.6 since the nitrites began to build up. (City water quality lab person said that because the pH is so high and they actually treat it to that pH to prevent various problems, it easily absorbs CO2 from the air.) Today I added mostly tap water when I changed 3/4 of the water in the tank (had to take out most of the water to put new plastic and tarp under the tank, and never changed ater at all yesterday because the carpet was uncovered to dry out). So we’ll see what the pH is tomorrow!
I have added salt to the tank.
I’m trying to keep the temperature around 76.
I did try an ammonia reducing polyfilter one day, but it didn’t actually work and people told me it wouldn’t if the ph is that high. The fish store had said it would help the sick tetras I had at that time. I only hda intended to use it for a short time, because I can see that if I remove all the ammonia the tank will never cycle.
Yours, Dora Smith Austin, TX tiggernut24@yahoo.com

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