High ammonia reading result of tap water?

[Albertan22]

I just refilled my QT tank two days ago to get ready for some new fish. Since it's just a QT for fish I decided to try using tap water instead of RO/DI. The tap water was treated with a chlorine/chloramine treatment prior to mixing in the salt. Long story short, the new water tests really high for ammonia and the ammonia alert patch turned purple rather quickly. The tank has been running for 3 days with no fish running a sponge filter that's been in my main tank for 3 weeks and the reading isn't changing. Could something in the tap water be fooling my test kit and ammonia alert patch?

[fkshiu]

It's detecting the ammonia in the chloramine. You must use a dechlorinator that will take care of chloramine as well as the chlorine prior to using the water for an aquarium.

[torrid_07]

i would suggest using a good amount of "prime" it comes in a red and white bottle

[Albertan22]

I used aqua plus which is supposed to remove chloramine, maybe I'll go pick up some prime tommorow and try that.

[fkshiu]

I used aqua plus which is supposed to remove chloramine, maybe I'll go pick up some prime tommorow and try that.

Then what's happened is that the aqua plus has bound up the ammonia (which is harmful) into ammonium (which is not harmful), but the test kit is still picking up the ammonium.

[Albertan22]

Will the ammonium eventually break down? Guess I'll have to rely on observation over test results for this round of QT...

[fishytime]

Another thing to consider picking up is an actual test kit for ammonia....ditch the patch:wink:

[rayjay]

Test the tap water with no salt in it to see if ammonia is present.
Also, there are test kits that only show unbound ammonia that is harmful, but not the bound ammonia.
I think AP has one of those kits.