HELP! Ammonia in tap water!!!!!

[nickbuol]

I swapped out my UGF/crushed coral for live sand last weekend (actually it was a mix of 100 pounds of southdown sand and 60 pounds of Arag-Alive). I was warned by the Arag-Alive folks (I called their 800 number) that I might get an ammonia spike and to be ready for water changes. Well, sure enough, the ammonia was at 0.10 the first day. I put some Ammo-Lock2 in with hopes that the system would take care of the little bit of ammonia in it. The next day, it was at 0.25, so I did a 10% water change. I checked the water again, and it was down a bit. Anyway, this was all last weekend, and today (Wednesday) I checked the water again (I have been doing 10% water changes every day, but not checking the water after the water change as it has been staying at 0.25, and not going up)....
Anyway, tonight, the ammonia level was up at 2.0!!! Yikes! I did a 10% water change, and tested again, it was still at 2.0, I did another 10% water change right away, and guess what, still 2.0... I start suspecting that something isn't right here. I tested a batch of freshly mixed saltwater (tap water with some stress coat for de-chlorination, and Reef Crystals salt)... Guess what, it was at 1.5 right there....
Everything else is testing out great. Zero nitrites, Zero nitrates, pH 8.1 (I don't want to bump it up as higher pH increases the toxicity of ammonia).
What is cuasing ammonia in our tap water? I've never had this problem before.
More importantly, how do I get rid of the ammonia before it goes into the tank?
Could it possibly be something in the salt mix? It is the bottom of the bucket, and I have a new bucket of Instant Ocean I haven't opened yet. I only have a saltwater test kit, so I didn't bother testing without the salt as I wasn't sure how accurate it would be on "fresh" water.
Please help!!!!

 

[nickbuol]

Oh, it is a 75 gallon FOWLR. I have 105 pounds of live rock, and the inhabitants are:
1 purple tang, 2 percula clown fish, 1 cleaner wrasse, 1 six-line wrasse, 1 royal dottyback, 2 cleaner shrimp, and about 25 snails (I removed my killer hermits last weekend and have 50 nassarius snails on the way to mix the sand a bit). I am feeding enough food that they fish consume it in less than 1 minute.
I would have thought that the biofilter of the live rock would have helped prevent this. I also have 6 nylon balls of the old crushed coral in the tank to help with some of the biodiversity until it starts to move to the sand.

 

[nickbuol]

OK. I did a little searching and someone else had posted that some salt mixes have ammonia in them. Is that true?
Also, my nice purple coraline algae is turning white.

 

[twoods71]

When i first started out I was going to use my tap water so I tested it to see if everything was OK. Well I found ammonia present in the tap water so I looked for better sources of water.
I now use a vending machine with excellent water quality for $.25 a gallon.
I've never heard of salt mixes with ammonia problems but I guess it could happen.
The majority of problems with salt mixes is usualy phosphates.

 

[nickbuol]

TWOODS71, what the heck do you use to get all of the water home from the store? I mean, that is a lot of 1 gallon milk containers....

 

[nickbuol]

OK. Check out this test. I tested the water from the tap again, this time no salt, just tap water. Ammonia was about 1.0 - 1.5
I then added AmQuel to a sample of the tap water, still no salt, and I got a reading very close to, if not, zero on the ammonia.
I was using stress coat before to dechlorify the water, but the owner of the LFS (stopped by over lunch) told me to try the AmQuel.
How is this possible? Where would the ammonia come from in the tap water? I also thought that you could only de-tox the ammonia and not remove it from the water except by bacteria type filtration, as in a tank. Did AmQuel actually get rid of it?
Thanks yet again for any insight that you might have on this.

 

[twoods71]

I use 5 gallon containers for the water.
AmQuel will only neutralize the ammonia it will not get rid of it. The benificial bacteria in your tank will still consume it in its neutralized state but it will not harm fish.
Like you I also tested ammonia in my tap water. Not sure how it gets there but it sure makes you think twice before taking a sip.

 

[fixitdude2001]

Hay you guys with the tap water with ammonia. is this city water or well? city water there should be zero ammonia, if you have a well is it a point? or a deep well? A deep well like we have has a chance to filter out with no ammonia. A point is usally so shallow that you get surface water in your water like rain, snow, the dog urinateing or cat. Our old nieghbor couldnt drink there water for this reason. If you have city water I sure would contact someone at your filtration dept or the health dept. We had to have a hole diagnosis of our water when we moved here do to the daycare on the premisis. cya...fixit

 

[mr.marine]

uhhhhggggggg. im sorry but i dont know whats goin on where u live. ammonia is bad for you! it definately SHOULDNT be in your tap water. id conatact ur health dep! here in Canada its illegal for drinking water to show ANY signs of ammonia! im sure it would prob be the same in the states! any updates since u first posted this!
goood luck! Call em!!!!!!
flame