Shoal & Stem
Tap water lookup

Portland, OR tap water

Supplied by Portland Water Bureau. 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 0.4 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

0.12–0.68 ppm (Low)

Typical 0.4 ppm

This is what a conditioner frees when it breaks the chloramine apart. A cycled filter clears it within a day.

Estimated from the chloramine level Portland Water Bureau reports (2025).

Nitrite (NO₂)

Not detected (Low)

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

From EPA monitoring data (2012–2019).

Nitrate (NO₃)

Up to 0.5 ppm (Low)

Typical 0.3 ppm

Low, so water changes lower your tank's nitrate well.

Published by your utility: Portland Water Bureau's 2025 water quality report.

Copper at home taps (first draw)

0.01–0.5 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.

Published by your utility: Portland Water Bureau's 2025 water quality report.

Chlorine or chloramine at the tap

0.5–2.8 ppm

Typical 1.6 ppm

At tap levels, chlorine and chloramine are toxic to fish, shrimp and the bacteria in a filter. Water conditioners are made for this range.

Published by your utility: Portland Water Bureau's 2025 water quality report.

Water chemistry

General hardness

7–80 ppm

Typical 9 ppm

Soft. Good for tetras, rasboras and most shrimp. Livebearers, snails and African cichlids prefer harder water.

Published by your utility: Portland Water Bureau's 2025 water quality report.

Carbonate hardness (alkalinity)

25 ppm

Little buffering. pH can drop quickly between water changes, especially with CO₂ or an older tank.

Published by your utility: Portland Water Bureau's website.

pH

8–9

Typical 8.5

Alkaline. Many utilities raise pH to protect pipes. Stability matters more than the exact number.

Published by your utility: Portland Water Bureau's 2025 water quality report.

Who supplies Portland, OR

Our data comes from public records and is still incomplete. Many utilities don't publish every number, so we're adding more all the time. Your city's range is a starting point: testing your own tap is the only way to know exactly what's in it.

Tap water lookup covers US cities only for now. Want to know why it matters? Read our story on tap water.

Compiled by Shoal & Stem from public records. Free to cite with a link.

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