Ammonia crisis advice

So i'm visiting my parents house for christmas, and decided to bring the axolotl's with me, because no one could take care of them at home. Unfortunately I discovered our tap has ammonia in it. After just 4 hours of being in the new tank the ammonia was at .5! I couldn't believe it, and could not get the ammonia down after doing multiple water changes. After a while I finally tested the tap, and got a reading of .5. I ended up deciding my test was bad, and went to get a new one this morning, and the new one read .5, as did a local pet store test. I've gotten plants to help with this, but is there anything else I can do? I went out and bought 2 5 gallon jugs of bottled water, but that too has ammonia. I'm about to go find some distilled water gallon jugs and fill the 20 gallon with those, but is there anything else I can do? I have a juvenile, and a larvae in the tank, so I would prefer the parameters to be perfect, but unfortunately I'm not at home where I would have access to enough plants to suck the tank dry of ammonia

Plants dont use ammonia.

A naturally occuring bacteria does (and produces nitrites) - another natural bacteria uses the nitrites and produces nitrates - the plants use nitrates.

So plants can be effective in reducing high nitrates, and can assist the nitrogen cycle if they have come from a cycled tank and have bacteria on them - but having lots of plants wont reduce the ammonina reading in the short term

Given you are getting readings from the tap water, and that i assume your temporary set up is not cycled, there would be no way to get rid of the ammonia in the short term.

I'd simply buy an ammonia neutraliser from the fish shop

i think a good one is called Amquel. It's only a short term arrangment while you are holidays. If you are there longer than 4-6 weeks, the tank will cycle anyway (even if you use the ammonia neutraliser - it doesnt take away ammonia, just removes the harful effects, so the tank will still cycle)

Bren

I had a sponge filter that I thought was fully cycled, becuase I've never had any readings but nitrates in the old tank. plants do take ammonia, and the water's down to .25, which is still too high. The distilled water changes are helping I think, but It's not putting a big enough of a dent in. I did a 100% water change with bottled water, but I got the wrong kind and it was just filtered tap water. I went out and got distilled water and did a nice big water change, so hopefully that will help.

Distilled water is bad, unless you're treating it with salt before using it. It will leach ions out of your axolotl.

Ammonia in tap water is usually from the water treatment plant using chloramine to sanitize the water. Dechlorinator breaks this molecule into chlorine and amine (an ammonia molecule). If you let the water sit in a bucket overnight with a bubbler in it, most of the chlorine and a bit of the ammonia will dissipate. In a cycled tank, this ammonia gets converted by bacteria quickly. In a temporary situation, use lots of plants and the sponge filter.

Ok, that makes me feel much better. My decholrinator gets rid of chloramines as well. I'll hold off on the water changes, luckily I read this before I used the distilled water. Hopefully the ammonia will keep going down, I definatly thought the sponge filter was cycled, but I guess not. I still can't beleive the tap has ammonia, I was not expecting this.

A dechlorinator doesn't 'get rid of chloramine', but rather breaks the chlorine/amine bond. Chlorine itself will just evaporate, but chloramine won't, which is why you need the dechlorinator.

Hmmm, ok, i'm always happy to be corrected, it's how we learn.

My understanding was that plants have no effect on ammonia other than assisting in the overall cycle.

So i went over to an aquascaping / shrimp forum i go to, and asked the plant experts there.

Plants in fact prefer ammonia over nitrates. so, sorry for my mis-information

Either way, in this temporary situation, i'd simply buy an ammonia neutraliser for the quick fix. (only because it's temporary)

bren

just tested my water, and it looks like everything is in the clear. I'm so relieved, I was so freaked out about the ammonia