ammonia in tap water!!

[Tommy Gether]

ok so today i did a 10 percent change cause i seen the nitrates finally start to creep to 10.. well about 2 hours after the change i decided to test and i seen the ammonia was at .25 from zero,, so i freaked a little cause yesterday i removed the bio balls and decided to let the live rock do the magic. i tested over and over like 4 times and got the same reading, so i panicked and put like a forth of the bio balls back in, but i got to googling and seen people say they seen ammonia go up after water changes due to tap water having it, so i tested the tap water and found it has a reading of over 1.5 out the tap,, WTF!!!.. ok so if i do water changed to lower the nitrates, but when i do changes i end up adding ammonia which will convert to even more nitrates then i prolly removed in the first place i can see this snow balling out of control,, so does this mean im stuck buying water from here on out?

[Tommy Gether]

should i remove the bio balls and just let the live rock adjust it in time and see what tommarow brings?

[johnnymisty]

The main thing you need to do is get an RO/DI filter and use that water to do your water changes and get an auto top off kit to keep the water topped off in the Sump

[Tommy Gether]

yeah but till i get that i guess ill have to make due with distilled or something from the store

[johnnymisty]

Lfs sells ro water usually not to expensive

[eklikewhoa]

The watermill water is pretty decent I tested one by my house and it was only 4TDS.

Chloramines is what you are finding on your test for ammonia. I have been dealing with it too, trying to cycle a tank with just water changes has been quite the task when I do 100% wc.

[TiAg]

Tap water is bad. You can start a tank with it but never for water changes. What part of town are you in and how big is your tank?