Lubbock, TX tap water

Supplied by Lubbock Public Water System. Here's what its water means for your fish.

Disinfectant

Chloramine

Your water is treated with chloramine. Unlike chlorine, it doesn't gas off when water sits out, and many pitcher and fridge filters aren't rated to remove it. Conditioners that list chloramine on the label break it apart, which frees about 0.85 ppm of ammonia here. Some utilities switch to plain chlorine for a few weeks a year.

Safety for fish and shrimp

Ammonia (with conditioner)

Estimate

0.59–1.72 ppm (Worth knowing)

Typical 1.11 ppm

About 0.26 ppm is already in the water, and a conditioner frees about 0.85 ppm more when it breaks the chloramine apart. A cycled filter clears it within a day; a big water change in a new or very small tank adds more of it at once. Some conditioners also bind ammonia for a day or so.

Estimated from the chloramine level Lubbock Public Water System reports; Lubbock Public Water System's 2025 water quality report.

Nitrite (NO₂)

Not detected (Low)

Not detected in testing, so any nitrite in your tank comes from the tank itself.

From EPA monitoring data (2012–2015).

Nitrate (NO₃)

0.3–6.4 ppm (Low)

Typical 5.9 ppm

Water changes can't take your tank's nitrate below this level.

From EPA monitoring data (2012–2019).

Copper at home taps (first draw)

0.01–0.27 ppm (Worth knowing)

The 90th percentile of first-draw samples from homes: water that sat in household pipes for at least six hours.

Shrimp and snails are sensitive to copper. Water that sits in household pipes picks up the most; it drops once the tap has run for a minute.