# Tropica soil



## john arnold (1 Nov 2018)

have a 140l tank that is almost month old with twinstar 600, press co2, now had a few fish die which i thought came in with some threadfin rainbow fish, so far 8 cardinals and a ram, every couple if days, i have been tinkering with plants anf thought does disturbing the substrate cause fish deaths sometimes, maybe releasing some toxin or ammonia ?


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## Siege (1 Nov 2018)

Tropica soil itself doesn’t leach ammonia.

Maybe releasing ammonia from detritus. Good water changes and sweeping your hand along the substrate will help.


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## tam (1 Nov 2018)

Have you tested for ammonia? That would be my first step. What's your water change routine? I'd up it. Was it an established filter?


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## john arnold (1 Nov 2018)

Filter did have some media from established one, i do sweep the soil although i find this tropica soil very light and suck up th3 tube a lot, i do 50% water change every week, i have oase 350t filter so clean prefilter every week too, ei dosing and ammonia tests 0, i just thought i may have spiked from soil disturbance, 
I like the turkey baster idea think ill do that, goood idea, 
just getting a bit fed up with the fish loss in this tank as i do so much care and work on them, its high tech, then my girlfrind pisses me off when she tells me years ago she may have done water change once every couple of months or so all low tech and never lost any fish, some cardinals just died without any outward signs of loss of colour but the one yesterday i saw before it died had swollen gills and was swimming about a bit mad
Co2 comes on 3 hours before lights and hour before they go out, lights on 8 hours, circulation good


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## tam (1 Nov 2018)

I haven't had any trouble with it, but I haven't disturbed it much. Are they new in, maybe dial the CO2 down a bit and then gradually re increase to help them adjust?


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## john arnold (1 Nov 2018)

tam said:


> I haven't had any trouble with it, but I haven't disturbed it much. Are they new in, maybe dial the CO2 down a bit and then gradually re increase to help them adjust?



Yeah but wont thst spark an algea growth if co2 is not constant


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## AverageWhiteBloke (1 Nov 2018)

You may be in high Nitrite Zone, if the tanks only four weeks old and already stocked up with fish you could still be getting Ammonia or Nitrite spikes. Ammonia is less toxic in water with a low PH but converts to toxic as PH rises so if your water is naturally high ph the ammonia could turn toxic when co2 is gassed off. Do you use a drop checker?


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## john arnold (1 Nov 2018)

Yesh drop checker lime green and my ph is low, 6.4, i had 19 cardinals and 2 rams and 4 ottos, 15 cherry shrimp


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## AverageWhiteBloke (2 Nov 2018)

Maybe stocked too early. You could also have lost a fish and not noticed and the decomposing body has overwhelmed the still fragile filter. 
I would just keep going with water changes maybe twice a week and don't add anymore fish for a while. 

Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk


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## john arnold (2 Nov 2018)

AverageWhiteBloke said:


> Maybe stocked too early. You could also have lost a fish and not noticed and the decomposing body has overwhelmed the still fragile filter.
> I would just keep going with water changes maybe twice a week and don't add anymore fish for a while.
> 
> Sent from my STH100-2 using Tapatalk



Yeah think ill let it all settle for a while although i did use old media in filter and i thought the shrimp would have died if water had been the issue but yeah give a while longer before any fish added


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## Stephen swan (1 Aug 2021)

I setup a new planted tank yesterday using tropica and completed a water test today and can confirm that amonia and nitrite where at high levels.
So tropica soil must leach in the early stages as nothing else could cause it in such short time.
My advice to anyone would be to do daily water changes 50% and use prime daily if you have livestock .
Will keep you updated on how long it takes to settle.


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