Santa Monica, CA tap water
Supplied by Santa Monica-City, Water Division. 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 a little ammonia. Some utilities switch to plain chlorine for a few weeks a year.
Safety for fish and shrimp
Nitrite (NO₂)
Not detected (Low)
Not detected in testing, so any nitrite in your tank comes from the tank itself.
From California Water Board lab results (2025–2026).
Nitrate (NO₃)
0.9–18 ppm (Low)
Typical 9.3 ppm
Water changes can't take your tank's nitrate below this level.
From California Water Board lab results (2023–2026).
Copper at home taps
0.04 ppm (Low)
Low. Water that sits in household pipes overnight can carry more than this.
From California Water Board lab results (2025).
Water chemistry
General hardness
102–560 ppm
Typical 331 ppm
Hard. Ideal for livebearers and African cichlids. Soft-water species may struggle to breed.
From California Water Board lab results (2023–2026).
Carbonate hardness (alkalinity)
66–310 ppm
Typical 188 ppm
Strong buffering. pH stays steady and hard to lower without RO water.
From California Water Board lab results (2023–2026).
pH
7.2–8.3
Typical 7.7
Most community fish do well here. Stable water matters more than the exact number.
From California Water Board lab results (2023–2026).
Total dissolved solids
185–895 ppm
Typical 540 ppm
A rough measure of everything dissolved in the water. RO water reads near 0, so TDS is a quick way to compare waters.
From California Water Board lab results (2023–2026).
Who supplies Santa Monica, CA
Santa Monica-City, Water Division
Serves all residents · Buys water from Metropolitan Water Dist. of So. Cal. · Chloramine
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.