Thornton, CO tap water
Supplied by City of Thornton. 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 0.63 ppm of ammonia here. Some utilities switch to plain chlorine for a few weeks a year.
Safety for fish and shrimp
Ammonia (with conditioner)
Estimate0.19–0.95 ppm (Worth knowing)
Typical 0.63 ppm
This is what a conditioner frees 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 City of Thornton reports (2025).
Nitrite (NO₂)
Up to 0.26 ppm (Worth knowing)
Typical 0.26 ppm
Some nitrite shows up in this tap water, which can happen in chloramine systems, and it goes into the tank with each water change.
Published by your utility: City of Thornton's 2025 water quality report.
Nitrate (NO₃)
0.4–3.5 ppm (Low)
Typical 2 ppm
Low, so water changes lower your tank's nitrate well.
Published by your utility: City of Thornton's 2025 water quality report.
Copper at home taps (first draw)
0.47 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: City of Thornton's 2025 water quality report.
Chlorine or chloramine at the tap
0.8–3.9 ppm
Typical 2.6 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: City of Thornton's 2025 water quality report.
Water chemistry
General hardness
152–356 ppm
Typical 230 ppm
Hard. Ideal for livebearers and African cichlids. Soft-water species may struggle to breed.
Published by your utility: City of Thornton's 2025 water quality report.
Carbonate hardness (alkalinity)
60–112 ppm
Typical 86 ppm
Moderate buffering. pH should stay fairly steady.
From EPA monitoring data (2014–2019).
pH
7.4–9
Typical 8.1
Alkaline. Many utilities raise pH to protect pipes. Stability matters more than the exact number.
Published by your utility: City of Thornton's 2025 water quality report.
Total dissolved solids
195–679 ppm
Typical 437 ppm
A rough measure of everything dissolved in the water. RO water reads near 0, so TDS is a quick way to compare waters.
Published by your utility: City of Thornton's 2025 water quality report.
- City of Thornton adds phosphate to protect pipes. It can feed algae in tanks without much plant growth.
Who supplies Thornton, CO
- 2025 water quality report
City of Thornton
Serves 95% of residents · Lake or river water · 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.