Ammonia lowering tricks n tips

Quick question for everyone, so my tap water readings are:

ph: 8.2
ammonia: .25
nitrites: 0
nitrates: 5.0

Since my tap water has ammonia and nitrates right off the bat my tank's "base" levels are always reading

ph: 8.2
ammonia: .25
nitrites: 0
nitrates: 5.0

Ph is prefect since its a mbuna setup but wondering if there is a way to get rid of that 0.25 ammonia from the tank after doing water changes? The fish are doing great and I believe the tank has finished its cycle but it would be nice to have that 0 ammonia reading levels then have a base reading of 0.25. Hopefully that makes sense lol

Tank info:
55 gallon
filtration: fx6 [biomax inside] also HOB [obtaining seeded media]
fish in cycle started off with 3 cuckoo cats, now has 4 cuckoos [1.25 - 1.75 juveniles] and 2 yellow labs [1in juveniles]
fish are all super active and eating
Tank has been cycling since April 17th so working on 24 days now
Dosed with prime for every water change
Dosed with Flourish and Cichlid trace every 3-4 days
Tank is planted with 2 java ferns, 2 nano anubias, and 2 amazon swords. Who knows how long the plants with last since cichlids are known for uprooting but since they are so small right now no plants have been harmed.
There will be 4 more mbunas arriving within the next couple of days
Tank has went through ammonia, nitrite [very little 0.25 ppm] and nitrate spike already

Thank you!

 

Well, even if the tap is reading .25, the tank should still read 0 after a day, or a few hours. What type of test are you using? Strips commonly give bad readings and even the api test kit can give false positives, or be a little off. I would test it against a gaurenteed ammonia free source like bottled water to see if thats what it is first.
Did you do a fish in cycle or fishless? If you did fishless you could be doing a mini cycle as it tries to catch up with the new stock, or you might not be all the way finished with a fish in cycle, but youre close. It typically takes about 30 days to completely cycle a tank, barring any setbacks without bottled bacteria.

 

Using the api test kit and it was a fish in cycle. Could up'ing my water change % help get that set to 0? I've been doing about 40-50% water changes once ammonia levels look like their reaching .50

Ill test a bottom of water and see what my readings are off of that.

 

Use ro/di water and remineralize. Then it wont matter what your tap water is or what may change from day to day in your tap water.

 

Don’t worry about the 0.25. You’re only going to change 25% of the water or so and 25% of the tank volume at 0.25 is too low to read and that ammonia should be consumed by your BB pretty quick.