ammonia in city water possible emergency here

[cemantic]

We brought our pond fish in and put them in a cattle trough.  2/3 pond water then added two baskets of plants, water hiatis (sp) lots of hornwort and all the filter material in the new weir/ bucket filter.  Added stones, clay pots from the pond.  Grow lamps on top and the plants are growing.

That was done two weeks ago and added half the fish at that time, added the rest a couple of days later.  Tested no ammonia, nitrites low nitrate up until this morning.  I did a 1/3 water change last night.  Checked the ammonia this morning and it is about 1 and PH is 6.8.  I checked the water out of the tap and the PH is 8.8 and the ammonia levels are between 1 and 2 out of the tap.

I think it was the water change that did in the ammonia levels.  everything was good until then.  I added a good dose of prime.

Any suggestions?  I have water in the pond I can sub in if it is not ammonia spiked since it was all from the tap.

[bergenm]

Personally, I would double dose with Prime and just re-test after doing water changes. You seem to have already figured out the source of the ammonia and the prime will help neutralize it.

One other possible source for the ammonia might be coming from your filter. As the temperature drops outside, the number of bacteria in your filter also drops dramatically. When you bring the fish and the filter back inside, the fish start putting out a lot of waste within 24 hours but it takes the filter a few weeks to get back to it's full function.
In the meantime, you may want to reduce your feedings...