which type of ammonia in chloramine?

[aquanow]

g'day All,

I've got a drip system that has 2 stage filters(sediment and carbon block) which is used to filter out chlorine, because sydney water is treated with chloramine, which means I will have ammonia left in the water, so is this NH3 or NH4+? and is it harmful to fish if drip directly into my main tank? the current rate of dripping is about 200L per 24 hours into my 6x2x2 tank with a 4 foot sump.

I've tested the tank water, and ammonia is 0, nitrite 0 and nitrate 0 (this is a planted tank), but the ammonia on the filtered water is 0.25. (API test kit), so should this be a concern at this drip rate?

as a workaround, I'm so tempted to drip this water directly into my sump and hopefully the nitrifying bacteria will eliminate the ammonia before the water is returned back to the main tank, however I'm concerned about the chlorine, if the filtered water isn't 100% chlorine free, I will risk killing my biological filter. so does anyone have a similar setup? and could you advise your experience with it?

tank has been running for 1 month and all fishes are doing fine at the moment.

Best regards
George

[ILLUSN]

at ph below 6 ammonia exists as NH4 at ph above 7 it is always NH3

put your change water into the sump please test the water commoing out in the last section and it should be fine.

[aquanow]

Thanks Illusn,

yep, just added 2 more carbon block and direct the water to my sump. hopefully this will give me trouble free for afew months.

Cheers

[xrrob]

Thanks Illusn,

yep, just added 2 more carbon block and direct the water to my sump. hopefully this will give me trouble free for afew months.

Cheers

How did you go with this setup? I’m starting to set my tank up the same.

Thanks