Ammonia .25 Nitrates 5 ppm (too low?)

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My tap water has .25 ppm ammonia. My tank also has .25 Ammonia. I use Prime, during every water change. Just cleaned out my filters (with tank water, left 1 of the sponges with some sludge, filters are working full strength.
40 gallon long.
2 Aqua clear 50's.... 400 gph
heavily planted.
50 % WC X 1/week.
Root tabs.
Low light.
Have cut down feeding during the past month to see if I could get ammonia to 0.
9 Bloodfin tetras
4 cherry barbs (had 5 more, but returned what I could catch...Males chased everyone around)
8 Peppered Cory's,
2 super red BN Plecos (3 inches)
3 Otos.
3 Ghost shrimp
6 Assasin snails.

AMMONIA - .25 ppm
NITRITE- 0
Nitrate 5 PPM
PH - 8.2
OFF the charts hard water.

How do I get ammonia to 0? is 5 PPM Nitrate way too low a day after WC? Should I but some Tetra safestart.... might my tank not have enough good bacteria to counter the ammonia? (Don't really know what I am talking about, but thought I read something like that.
Thanks.

I WAS Using tap + prime to fill up the HOB filters to get them started up until a month ago. could that of killed beneficial bacteria?I now use tank water

 

I don't think using tap treated with prime would kill off the BB as long as you treat it before pouring into the filter main cause of a bacteria die off is either very toxic levels of ammonia/nitrite (not sure about nitrate) or chlorine or chloramines

on to your main question it will never hurt to add a bottle of TSS just be sure to wait 24hrs after any water change that you used prime with and to not do a waterchange for 2 weeks (14 days)

another thing to consider although if your cycled or close to cycled it shouldn't matter but how much ammonia is in your tap water naturally?

 

"How do I get ammonia to 0?"
Plants. Lots, and lots of plants.... Live plants that is. My understanding is plants not only eat nitrate but ammonia as well.

 

5 ppm nitrate is fine. My new cichlid tank hovers between 5 and 10 (which is preferential for the type of fish I have). For a healthy cycled tank you do want between 5 and 40 ppm.

Since the tank is already cycled (and if you can order some), I would invest in Dr Tim's One & Only instead of TSS. O&O is good for both cycling and giving the tank an extra boost of good bacteria. I used O&O on my new tank and had to perform 2 big water changes to lower the nitrites and it did not disrupt the cycling process.

I've been hearing a lot of good things lately about AmQuel Plus for removing ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate from tap water (tap water in a bucket before it goes into the tank), so you could give that a try. Since I don't personally use the product I do recommend a bit of research before you purchase it, just to make sure it will do exactly what you need.

 

I am having this same problem and was wondering how it has worked out for you.