Combating Ammonia

If you have ammonia (NH3) in your aquarium it may be due to a new aquarium setup that has not yet completed the "tank cycling process" AKA "new tank syndrome", which means that your aquarium has not yet developed enough beneficial bacteria to sustain the new aquariums environment. It could also be poor water quality (dirty, lots of debris, dead fish, fecal matter, etc). No matter the true reason for the ammonia levels I find the best remedy for combating ammonia issues is to do 25-50% water changes 1-2 times a week or as needed  (there are also aquarium products on the market which claim to remove ammonia, but I have yet to find one that gave me instant success), and try to at least keep the ammonia levels in a safe range during this period. Once your aquarium becomes established (which can sometimes take months) the ammonia level should reach 0, and this is the ideal level to be at.

Below are some questions I've been asked about ammonia, and if you have anymore questions you'd like to ask feel free to write me in the comment section below.

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Question: Does 'Seachem Prime' show traces of ammonia when using ammonia test-strips in water?

Answer: I tried this using the 'API Ammonia test-strips' on my aquarium tap water as well as bottled water with the appropriate amount of 'SeaChem Prime' in them over the course of several days, and the results were negative.

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Question: Does 'Aquarium Salt' remove ammonia?

Answer: I tried using 'Aquarium Salt' to remove ammonia that was in an unestablished aquarium and this did not work over 24hrs later, if anything my ammonia readings seemed to get higher... which may not be all too surprising since 'Aquarium Salt' can be used to clean an aquarium (hence, possibly killing some beneficial bacteria??).

So it may actually be possible that if your aquarium was established and now has ammonia in it from being overly dirty than 'Aquarium Salt' may actually help the ammonia levels, but I have not tested that out yet.