• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up

Ammonia spike with new Akadama substrate, help!

Perhaps adding a load of seachem prime will help? It says on the bottle it deactivates ammonia and nitrite compounds
 
Vaevictus said:
It says on the bottle it deactivates ammonia and nitrite compounds

Hmm... In terms of scientific language "deactivates" sounds slightly woolly to me... But after reading this book (highly recommended read) I am sceptical of a lot of pseudo-scientific claims...
 
Block the light entering in your tank and cover the surface with Eichornia crasispes or Pistia Stratiotes (better the first), try to have some light over your plants but not into the thank so that they could grow ok, add some nitrifying bacteria solutions like JBL Denitrol or Tetra Safe Start double dose every day, don't do water changes and keep the equipments on (filters etc) .. you should be alright in a week or two with loads of floating plants to share :D.

Good luck.
 
Hi,

Everything has settled down really well now and appears to be stable, test kits showing zero levels of both ammonia and Nitrite for over a week now. The tank has a really 'polished' look about it which I'm really happy with but that could be due to the Purigen in my filter the Akadama or both. The plants are seemingly happy with most showing good 'new' growth. Noticeably and kind of how you would expect some of the Crypts are slower at responding but I haven't had any more crypt melt yet (fingers still crossed) and they look pretty healthy in general and some are showing new growth particularly the Parva which I thought would be the last to respond, shows how little I know.

I've managed to keep algae at bay thus far but with algae I've kind of got to the feeling that its only lent at the best of times, keeping on top of it seems to be what matters. Still I'm on top of it at the moment so I've got to be happy with that. Still dosing flourish excel to supplement the near yellow DC but at half the dosage level that I was at start up.

I've put 5 Oto's , 8 Botia Striatas and 12 Bleeding Heart tetras in now to add a little interest and they are all fine.

I've now settled back down to the normal EI regime of 50% weekly water changes but I'm keeping a close eye on things and will be ready and willing to react accordingly if I see anything untoward.

I'm determined to keep on top of this tank right from the word go. Will update this post again in a month or so's time.

Regards, Chris.
 
Hi,

Two weeks on from the last post and everything is going really well with no further issues what so ever. All plants are now showing good healthy growth.

Thank you James for the time that you've spent and for showing us the way forward with an economy substrate that works and works well.

Regards, Chris.
 
Thanks for posting your experiance bud. I'll find this one really helpfull when it comes to doing mine :)
 
I must have had the same thing in my set up as its the same as yours. As I had no fish I did not test the water at all. I still have not tested it but all must be well as the plants are fine.
Interesting read
 
Back
Top