WARNING DON'T TRUST YOUR WATER

[k1w1y2k]

I use a holding tank that is left to sit for 24hrs to get rid of clorine, then use it for water changes. Today I did a water change on some of my Discus fry, I did one of my fry tanks first, then went and did some other things. 1/2 later I notice all the fry at the top gasping. PINIC Mode. I immediatle did a water test, and came up with 2.0ppm Ammonia, Confused by this I tested my Water holding tank, again high ammonia, so I tested water coming out of the tap that fills my hilding tank. Shock horror - positive test to ammonia.

I contacted our local council and was told they would investigate and get back to me.

After a panic treatment with Ammo lock and stress coat to get the levels back to 0, and contacting our LFS to find out what products they had for ammonia, I was told that after the recent bad weather the council may have flushed the water lines.

The cost of this so far is 44 6 week old discus fry.

I will no longer presume that the water coming into the house is good quality.

[s3xtcy]

Wow! Sorry to hear that! I too have had problems with the water out of my tap, not ammonia, but pH.

One tap (the one in the kitchen) comes out, constantly at exactly 7.0, I moved the tank to the other side of the house (we had algae problems where it was, too much sun), and as a result started using the tap in the garage.

After a week of constant waterchanges because of fish gasping, showing general signs of uncomfortability, and getting annoyed with constant low ph levels, i did a test on the water in the tap - the lowest my pH test kit would go is 6, however it was as yellow as humanly possible.. I took in a test tube to my LFS so they could do a test on the pH with a low range kit, and it came out at 3.5ish, they couldnt believe it! i couldnt believe it!

Morale of the story - i now test my tap water monthly - and only use the one tap that has consistant good results..

[k1w1y2k]

Wow, that is a big difference in PH. It makes it hard when you try to do the right thing and end up with dead fish. The count is now at 48, with 7 more just hanging in.

[ryanjury]

Sorry to hear about your loss I have heard of the same thing happening a few times, I thought the council were supposed to notify you if they made changes to the water?

s3xtcy a PH of 3.5 out of the tap sounds extremely low, are you on town supply? Most town supplies are make to be slightly alkaline as it is easier on the piping..

[k1w1y2k]

Yes we are on town supply, and have a normal PH of 7.4. After reading about s3xtcy PH problem, I will now be doing daily PH checks as well, before doing water changes

[phoenix44]

that really sucks man!

pH 3.5 from the tap is near implausible though. more likely to be caused by the wrong indicator solution or using too much indicator.

[k1w1y2k]

I thought the council would have warned us to, but no warning was given, that is why I started this thread, just to warn everyone that there water might not be as good as they think, and if they, can test it before water changes just to be on the safe side.

[alanmin4304]

There is no reason for the council to add ammonia to the water supply. A pH of 3.5 from the tap would eat up all the hot water cylinders in the water supply district in a matter of weeks. I would suggest you test your tests.

[phoenix44]

maybe they were using carbon?

[Sunbird73]

It might be worthwhile contacting public health as there may be more than ammonia in it - and see what they say about it. They may want to you to collect a sample in a sterile container for testing (but this will need to be kept below 4 degrees and be received by the lab less than 24hrs after collecting).

I would be wondering A) where the ammonia (nitrogen) came from - contamination from somewhere, either wastewater or fertiliser

DH (who is a wastewater engineer) can see no reason why the council would ever add anything containing nitrogen (that would result in ammonia readings) to drinking water. Somebody screwed up...

B) if there is anything else in there along with the ammonia (ie. giardia!)

[k1w1y2k]

Its not them adding it, its them not removing it from excessive runoff that could be the problem. I tested my tests by testing water in other tanks, and got good results. I tested the water comming from the tap hourly after ringing the council, and after 6 hours it is back to normal. I also checked for clorine which was 0, and after using ammo lock and stress coat than ammonia level was again at 0, so I believe the tests to be correct.

[alanmin4304]

Where does the council water supply come from--catchment, river, lake etc?

[k1w1y2k]

Just in case there is anything else in the water, we are only drinking boiled or bottled water here.

Until now I have regarded tap water as safe, but not anymore. I know a lot of people use filters to remove chemical's from there drinking water, but I heard that these can remove some good things from the water as well.

I still haven 't heard back from the council, so I will be ringing them again tomorrow to find out what went wrong.

[k1w1y2k]

I got a report from the council a year ago, and looking at it, the water is a mix of lake and artision (under ground bores) that we get here

[mcrudd]

I am so glad we are on tank water, so I can monitor my own water supply

[Caryl]

Your Ammolock is going to affect your test readings too

[k1w1y2k]

I used ammolock to try to counteract the ammonia. THe high readings were before using it. I normally don't use chemicals unless there is a problem. To keep good water quality I have found that the best thing to do is water changes. I normally just use ammolock when shipping fish, nut this time was different. It's hard to fix bad water when the water you have is worse.

[David R]

I use a holding tank that is left to sit for 24hrs to get rid of clorine

This has been discussed a hundred times, and you aren't actually getting rid of anything by letting the water stand around.

Also, how big a water change did you do? Even if you did a 50% water change with water that had 2ppm ammonia that would dilute to 1ppm and although it wouldn't be good for the fish surely if you had adequate filtration it would be taken care of quickly enough?

IMO the message isn't "don't trust your water", more like "don't risk hundreds of dollars worth of delicate fish for the sake of saving $30 on a bottle of prime".

[k1w1y2k]

Sorry David but it has also been covered a lot about aging water to remove chlorine. What I did was a 95% change. As I was moving the fry from 1 tank to a different grow-out tank, the same way I have done a lot of times before. I made sure the ph and Temps were exactly the same and kept the fry in water at all times. After reading your response let me ask you, do you test your water for ammonia before adding it to your tank. I check PH, chlorine and the temp of water I'm adding but until now didn't expect ammonia in the water.

[phoenix44]

Unfortunately, we never expect the worse, and spend loads of time and money to fix the unexpected surprises.

In this hobby in particular sometimes poop happens. Unfortunately, when poop does happen it happens to the most expensive / rare / precious fish. I too use prime for that reason. removes ammonia and dechlorinates. I've said this once before, and im forgetting where i sourced my info from but a by product of the removal of chlorine using carbon is ammonia.

Having said that, ammonia is less toxic at lower pH levels. but since you have baby discus I can only presume you are using more alkaline water and not acidic.

[k1w1y2k]

Yes my the PH on my grow out tanks is kept between 7.2 and 7.4.

This threed seems to be getting off what it's intension was. That is to warn people that the water comming into your house is not always what you expect. I don't want other people to have the same problem with their fish.

I have read advise where people say the fish are doing certain things, and most of the time the advise is to do water changes. Today for me that might have made things worse than they were. That is why I said, Dont trust your water.

I used to use alot of chemicals in my water before doing water changes, then after reading on here and on international forums about unnecessary use of chemical, I stopped using them. Like I have said I tested PH and Chlorine, (and only treat when I have to), and as my holding tank is preheated before I use it, I check the temp. Who would expect to get ammonia in the water on town supply?

[k1w1y2k]

I know that there are always risks with fish, but with the right advice and prewarning about possible problems, then the risks can be reduced. If this threed saves someone elses fish, then it will make it worth while.

[henward]

where are you from?

i never do water changes that much in one go.

at most, only 70litres can go into a cycle in my water changer, my filtration would take care of ammonia in that 70 litres i think.

but thats annoying, the council should notify you!

[alanmin4304]

I can understand that you are upset at the death of your fish but I have some problems with your problem:

Standing chlorinated water for 24 hours may remove the chlorine but will not remove the chloramines that are about as toxic. I have explained this in previous posts.

A pH of 3.5 is extremely acid and will corrode all the copper and brass in the reticulated water supply area. Councils start to panic when the pH gets anywhere on the acid side of 7. I have spent years working with water supplies and the phones at the council office would melt.

It is not possible to have free ammonia in water with a pH of 3.5

Young discus are very vulnerable to all sorts of water changes.

I do hope you get to the root of the problem.

[David R]

As Alan said, you don't actually get rid of chlorine by standing the water, you simply convert it to chloramines which are equally as toxic.

After reading your response let me ask you, do you test your water for ammonia before adding it to your tank.

No, I don't even check the pH, but I also don't do 95% water changes on tanks full of delicate fry. I change up to 50% at a time and I treat the bulk of it with prime to remove any nasties.

Perhaps a continuous drip system with a filtration system to remove the chlorine/chloramine would be a much better system than doing 95% changes, and probably less work.