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I have added more soil to existing tank. Even if it does release ammonia a mature filter and growing plants will quickly remove it. If you are having a "wasted worry" about ammonia you could always add Prime or Amquel, daily for a while, as these will quickly mop up ammonia.

No nutrient issues with plants or algae. All plants require a weekly trim to stop them escaping around the tank. I am dosing 1 1/2 times EI levels, green going yellow drop checker and 4 T5 tubes on 8 hours a day. Stratum is fine after coming on 6 years. You can crush the Stratum "balls" if you...

If I was doing it again, knowing what I know now and knowing how expensive proper substrate is (just buy it !!) and having seen how proper substrate grips the plants: Use 1. Bite the bullet and use ADA powder and substrates. or 2. Use JBL volcano as packing/buildup layer (instead of sand)...

I use Fluval Statum in my 180litre tank. Can't remember how much but far far more bags full than I initially anticipated/calculated. Initially I set it up about 2cm of Stratum at the front going to 5cm or more at the back with about 2-3cm gray capping layer of sand. I used plastic milk bottles...

I have black sand under Stratum, no issues with anaerobic conditions. Biggest issue is that over time, patches of sand appear, either stratum sinking into the sand or stratum moving around allowing sand to show through. Not a problem as just cover it with plants, job done.

You may be able to separate the sand using a fine sieve. Quick looks reveals geologists fine metal sieves start at £50 odd, so not cost effective. However from your favourite tat bazaar one can get (for example) an A5 sized sheet of 0.1mm stainless steel mesh for £4 odd. You need to ascertain...

Other than frequent water changes you can use things like Prime/AmQuel+ to remove ammonia daily. My mate had to do this when moving to an emergency new tank after tank failure. Fish were all fine. Have to be careful if ammonia testing as Prime (not sure about AmQuel+) will interfere with certain...

I coated the bottom of my rocks with a large blob of aquarium safe silicone on the sharp points. Do it on a polythene sheet on a flat surface, outside the tank. You can the just peel the polythene off once silicone has cured.

In UK when I have been to demo's of setting up tanks, they either made the substrate so deep rocks hitting bottom wasn't a problem (as seen & done by Mr Farmer) or on another demo they covered the bottom of the tank with Aqua Medic Egg Crate, which is quite easily available in UK.

What dechlorinator did you use, some are more effective than others ? Also generally if you add chlorinated water to a dirty tank (and/or dirty filter) you can be OK as the chlorine quickly reacts with the organics and gets neutralised, which is why some people get away very dirty tanks, using...

Hard, hard that's not hard that is positively soft, I have 22º water. Don't appear to have any issues breeding fish and growing plants and getting CO2 in the water. Again you need to seriously think about starting to use RO as it makes fish & plant keeping 10 times harder and 10 time more time...

Plants shouldn't have issues with ammonia leeching, but make sure your CO2 levels, CO2 flow, fertilisation levels and light levels are correct or else plants will have issues. Maybe in 1-2 months all will be fine. Mature substrate, mature filters and fine settled in plants.

And the cost of your "doggies danglers" plc control system.

Zeus's monster tank is a starting place to get some ideas from...:D https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/olympus-is-calling-twin-co2-reactors-fitted.43046/

Yes you will probably need to clean it as it is likely to be full of dust. I cleaned my sand by washing sieve full at a time, outside using a hose pipe. Yes dirty water did come off, but after a couple of seconds it runs clean. Don't do it over a sink as if you spill any sand it will quickly...

1. Lower water level to expose and scrub (and bleach). Add dechlorinator to water to neutralise any remaining bleach. 1a. Use hydrogen peroxide instead. 2. Just scrub with water in. 3. With water in, put bleach on kitchen towel and press on wood. Change water or add dechlorinator afterwards. 4...

Brush and bleach.

When I have had this issue, cloudy water after major plant replanting, things like Accu-clear https://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/api-accuclear-water-clarifier-120ml-p-5124.html?cPath=544_40_229&zenid=50abe9e3e51efc9148bf8796ba9dfd0a work wonderfully overnight. They flocculate the fines into lumps...

Well having done this once to work out substrate depth on my Vision 180. (rounding figures as we go). Vision 180 area is 92cm x 45cm which gives an area of 0.92 x 0.45 = 0.4m2. Your depth is 2.5in inches which is 6.3cm. This gives a volume of 0.4 x 0.063 = 0.025m3. According to Eco-complete...

Try something like this... https://www.aquaessentials.co.uk/api-accuclear-water-clarifier-120ml-p-5124.html?zenid=b1e0cc13dd87b102444453ec521c5b2a When I added, what I thought was a previously well soaked piece of wood, which started staining my water, I added this after water change and it...

I put some decorative pebbles in the way to stop substrate & plants being washed away when I set my tank up. Once the plants (hair grass) had rooted I removed the pebbles.

That is impossible. Differing KH will give differing pH values.

Er no again. Hardness (or any other salt) does not affect the solubility of the CO2. Thus if one adds say 10 grams of CO2 to 200litres volume of water to get 30ppm (for instance) you will always get 30ppm regardless of the hardness of the water. What hardness does do is alter the pH changes for...

Er no. Some plants may grow better, but in general plants don't care about water hardness. See the pictures here of fine green plants on rock hard water. http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/high-cec-with-hard-water-pointless.38582/#post-418921...

I used flattened out plastic from a plastic 4litre milk container. Cut the bottle to provide plastic rectangles and used a heat gun (for paint stripping) to gently soften the plastic so it forms flat sheets. Eventually got rid of my dividers, separating sand and substrate, as the substrate...

I managed to get a few odd plants growing quite well, with "digging" clown loaches by pushing the stem of the plant through a small square of filter floss and burying the floss under the substrate. This stopped them uprooting the plants at least. Unfortunately the loaches took to eating the...

Within days of next doors cat's both getting run over with a week of each other (advantage of chipped pet's, the police scan the "remains" and contact your) the rats moved into our gardens within a week....Poison and big traps sorted them....

You need such massive water changes so early on as Aquasoil leaches huge amounts of ammonia for first couple of weeks. Some people recon so much ammonia that it will kill your filter bacteria unless diluted with large water changes. You can of course test using an ammonia test kit as water...

I ran my fish in a 1/2 size plastic dustbin for a week or so once. No filter, just heater and airstone. Hung the heater from a piece of wood across the top of the dustbin, so it wouldn't touch and melt the sides. Put some plastic plants and rocks in to fish to hide in. Had to put a cover on as...

I used Kordon Amquel (not the AmQuel+, which doesn't remove ammonia) when I did mine.

Never heard that before. I had no issues when I had to do emergency ammonia removal and in those days I was using only a crappy 400l/hr internal filter on 180litre tank. Yes I was aware the Prime and Kordon can affect the results of ammonia tests (bleaches test strips I seem to remember).

No both bind to ammonia and keep it bound.

Or dose daily with Prime or Amquel which will remove ammonia. Had to do that before after an emergency rebuild. Or daily large water changes.

I used 40l soft buckets (£3 each from Asda) to keep the water, substrate & mess in whilst tank fiddling.

SWMBO is going to love that in the lounge whilst tank fiddling....

This is my escapade converting existing tank to high tech. http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/reusing-water-in-a-rescape.36133/#post-388011 My Fluval substrate came from Zooplus 4Kg for £14, and I used 3 bags in a 180l tank, and still not deep enough in places. My backup comment is, sand under...

Never ever ever heard this one before, new to me. I thought people have successfully cycled their tanks using RO water which has 0GH and 0kH ? How do you know the filter hasn't cycled ? I assume you just left it alone for say 8 weeks, with maybe some plants in the tank ?

I used it when I got my second hand tank which came with fish but no substrate or used filter media so effectively starting again. Used AmQuel+ daily and weekly water changes and saw no ammonia. Even bought some ammonia as thought test kit was faulty, but it wasn't could easily detect ammonia in...

Either daily large water changes or use something like AmQuel+ to keep ammonia down. I have "cycled" a tank using AmQuel+ and got zero ammonia readings if dosed daily.

I dried excess JBL substrate in oven at 70'C for an hour in a baking tray coated with aluminum foil. When used in tank no different than when new.

If worried about ammonia, I and others I know have successfully used Kordon Amquel+ to remove ammonia, though is you are using mature filters they should remove any ammonia pretty well. When I re-scaped my tank years ago, new substrate mixed with old substrate sand and mature filter and new...

I have changed substrate before and just used daily dose of Amquel to remove ammonia. Works fine, fish all lived. In fact my mate had to do it when once, when he broke his tank, by placing it straight on a wooden surface, with a grain of sand underneath and bottom sheet cracked. Got a new tank...

Yes, you will have to remineralise with say 50% tap water or add specialist (or make your own) re-mineralisong salts. However, I would highly in fact positively tell you KISS when first starting. Keep it simple stupid ;) Many people start off down the super duper high tech gadget'y stuff route...

These are the only indicators I look at 1. Green drop checker. (OK heading yellow, but not blue and fish are alive). 2. Pearling plants (and alive fish). Sometimes I even.... Read the temperature, only as I often forget to turn heater back on at water change. Watch the bubbles...

If you were measuring just ammonia in pure water your tester would be accurate, however your tank (I hope) is not pure water. There are many other chemicals (natural and otherwise) that can interfere with the testers and give erroneous results. As these are unknown and variable quantities you...

Couple issues here You believe your tester :rolleyes: Most new substrates, especially man made from clay may leach ammonia to a certain degree. Your filter starter in my opinion can produce ammonia as the bacteria die in their new low nutrient environment. Just pop a few plants in and leave to...

Careful as pumice floats.

OUUUUUCH. £2.99 for 15Kg at Homebase and £4.99 in B&Q.

Doubt it. Has to be kiddie eat proof, so play sand is just sand. I know people who have used silver sand in their tanks to good effect, only £1.99 for 25Kg from builders merchant.

What you need to do is try some sand with your gravel to see if it works. Scrounge some sand from somewhere, local fish shop, builders, kids sand pit etc. Make two containers from bottom half of 500ml water bottles. In one put layer of sand then cap with gravel (+add water). In other put layer...

A bag or two of this ADA Aqua Soil Powder Amazonia Substrate - Buy Aqua Design Amano Nature Aquariums | The Green Machine as base, followed by possibly 3 bags of this ADA Aqua Soil Amazonia 9 Litre Substrate - Buy Aqua Design Amano Nature Aquarium Goods | The Green Machine would be fine for my...

The only thing in my case is, the fluval stratum is clearly less dense than sand, thus had a tendency to "float" on and up through the sand. Not too sure in your case, with gravel that this is so. The gravel may be better in staying put at the bottom, though I suspect the sand will fall through...

When I first setup my planted tank I placed Fluval Stratum (2-4mm size) under black Unipac sand. However after a while, bits of Fluval work their way up on top of the sand, especially after plant fiddling and the sand worked its way down. Also flow in the tank, if not careful, washed the sand...

Basically all the calculation never works. When I did my vision 180 I ended up having a 12.5Kg bag of sand left over and had to order two more bags of Fluval substrate.

I used a salad colindar from local £1 shop to separate my sand and fluval stratum when I discovered it was better to have sand underneath the stratum rather than the other way round.

When I had sand and plecs and plants, I planted the stem plants through a circle/sheet if firm'ish filter floss (Algarde make springs to mind). Cut a circle of the floss, cut a slit in the middle, push the plant roots through and bury the floss circle in the sand. Bingo plants stay in place...

Doesn't state how the nitrogen is provided, ammonium nitrate is bad, potassium nitrate OK.