3lackMamba
New Member
Hello, new here so nice to meet you all.
I've had my 70L aquarium for approximately 2 years now, it's well established and houses 20 cardinal tetras and they're doing great. This was my first proper aquarium and at the time of setting it up I was researching cycling so much that I completely skipped over plant care, so the substrate I used was just your typical inert black gravel, I thought it looked nice and had no idea how much trouble I would have with plants. My first 2 plants in the aquarium was a java fern (which is still going strong to this day, probably because it's not planted) and limnophila which grew like wildfire (but from what I hear these grow insanely well anyway), so I thought since the limnophila was growing so well I'd start dabbeling with other planted plants and everything I have put in the tank since the limnophila has melted away, most recently being vallisneria which I bought a month ago and am slowly watching it wither away, it's roots are basically non existent as one floated to the top the other day and I had to replant it.
I am toying with the idea of of changing my substrate to Tropica Aquasoil or Fluval Stratum and pretty much rescaping my entire aquarium whilst I'm at it in the hope that I can have a nice planted aquarium which is what I wanted from the beginning, but after looking into this I learned that using these active substrates can cause huge ammonia spikes and should ideally be used in the beginning of an aquariums life like when cycling rather than in an already established aquarium, OR you should have the means of removing the fish into a seperate aquarium until the ammonia spikes settle down.
Unfortunately I don't have the means of moving my fish to another tank, so is this still possible? Has anyone else done this and had any success? I guess I could buy a big plastic tub as temporary storage but I would like to find a more convenient method. I'm seeing different stories from different people and some people are saying DO NOT do it whilst other's are saying they done it with no problems. I'll admit I probably have an overkill of biological media in my filter for 20 tetra's, I have about 1.2kg of bio balls in a Allpondsolutions HOB filter for a 70L aquarium, and I don't know if that would be enough to handle the ammonia spikes of new substrate, AFAIK BB adjusts itself to the load of ammonia and nitrite, but how fast would it adjust to a big ammonia spike that the new substrate would introduce?
I'm far from an expert on plants as I kind of gave up on them after they kept melting on me, but I have recently had a new wave of motivation to get into them so any help here is much appreciated.
I've had my 70L aquarium for approximately 2 years now, it's well established and houses 20 cardinal tetras and they're doing great. This was my first proper aquarium and at the time of setting it up I was researching cycling so much that I completely skipped over plant care, so the substrate I used was just your typical inert black gravel, I thought it looked nice and had no idea how much trouble I would have with plants. My first 2 plants in the aquarium was a java fern (which is still going strong to this day, probably because it's not planted) and limnophila which grew like wildfire (but from what I hear these grow insanely well anyway), so I thought since the limnophila was growing so well I'd start dabbeling with other planted plants and everything I have put in the tank since the limnophila has melted away, most recently being vallisneria which I bought a month ago and am slowly watching it wither away, it's roots are basically non existent as one floated to the top the other day and I had to replant it.
I am toying with the idea of of changing my substrate to Tropica Aquasoil or Fluval Stratum and pretty much rescaping my entire aquarium whilst I'm at it in the hope that I can have a nice planted aquarium which is what I wanted from the beginning, but after looking into this I learned that using these active substrates can cause huge ammonia spikes and should ideally be used in the beginning of an aquariums life like when cycling rather than in an already established aquarium, OR you should have the means of removing the fish into a seperate aquarium until the ammonia spikes settle down.
Unfortunately I don't have the means of moving my fish to another tank, so is this still possible? Has anyone else done this and had any success? I guess I could buy a big plastic tub as temporary storage but I would like to find a more convenient method. I'm seeing different stories from different people and some people are saying DO NOT do it whilst other's are saying they done it with no problems. I'll admit I probably have an overkill of biological media in my filter for 20 tetra's, I have about 1.2kg of bio balls in a Allpondsolutions HOB filter for a 70L aquarium, and I don't know if that would be enough to handle the ammonia spikes of new substrate, AFAIK BB adjusts itself to the load of ammonia and nitrite, but how fast would it adjust to a big ammonia spike that the new substrate would introduce?
I'm far from an expert on plants as I kind of gave up on them after they kept melting on me, but I have recently had a new wave of motivation to get into them so any help here is much appreciated.