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Hi there,

I have a sick betta alone in a 1G tank (soon to be upgraded to a 2G aquarium). On the hospital forum, some people have said that my ammonia level should be zero. It is 0.25. So is the water that comes right out of the tap. So is tap water even after I add AmmoLock and Aqua Safe (Cl remover). Should I switch to bottled drinking water, or is this a bad idea? BTW, I'm pretty sure my test strips are OK because I just got them, I'm keeping the bottle closed, and the exp. date is OK. Thanks so much for your help!

You should be scared if your tap water actually does have 0.25 ppm ammonia in it...If you have chloramine, which you may, then you shouldn't be scared as it won't hurt you, but you should continue to use dechlorinator and ammonia detoxifyer. (I'm not sure if ammonia test kits will register ammonia in the cloramine molecule.)

Bottled spring water is fine to use, just make sure you change it frequently if not using a filter. (ie, 1x per day). Distilled isn't as good as it doesn't have much mineral content, and therefore won't have any buffering capacity.

Use a little substrate from an existing (healthy) tank to add some biofilter capacity.

I would try a different test kit to see if you get the same results.

BTW, using ammo-lock or any of the many similar products will not remove ammonia, but rather detoxify it by locking it within another molecule...at any rate, the ammonia is still available to your biofilter and is also available to your test strip/kit; however, its not supposed to be able to hurt your fish.

Good luck!

[span class="edited"][Edited by jungle-jim 2004-07-23 14:30][/span]

Try testing your tap water before you add the ammo lock. . . sometimes it can give false readings for ammonia. Plus you really don't need ammo lock, especially not for a betta tank so I'd stop using it completely. Switching to bottled water probably isn't the best idea since your betta is used to the chemistry of your tap water by now and the switch would only stress it further. Like I said in your post in hospital, your betta really just needs a little TLC right now, good water quality and a drop or two of melafix should get those fins healed up in no time at all.