@@Mr.Helper. I know it's been a year and you have probably moved on, but if anyone else is wondering if it's ok it is. The plants will eat some of the ammonia you put in, which will lead to less ammonia for bacteria to grow on, so simply add more ammonia than your fish would be able to produce to make sure you have an adequate amount of bacteria for your bio load.
Brilliant!!!! I have pothos Roots hanging out in my tank and I recently added more fish so my ammonia levels got a lot higher. In a pinch a added a ton of more pothos on the top of the tank. (I have them in glass vases all around the house.) I'm hoping the extra roots in the water will help even things out.
Beneficial bacteria convert ammonia to nitrites, then to nitrates. Which the plants then feed off. Your guy and aquaviva are correct. Just not going into detail.
Wonder if much of that ammonia simply converted to nitrite/nitrate, hence wasn't picked up by the test. Would be good to do this with a control tub, with only some additional mature substrate and water.
I’m at .25 in my 40 gallon tank with 3 corydoras and a mud turtle. Just added duckweed today and I have 2 Anubis plants as well. Did two 50% water changes the past two days. Should I just let the plants do it’s work or do another water change tomorrow as well?
so the stocking is a bit off, you should have at least 5 corydoras for a school, and idk if a mud turtle is a good tankmate. But if you have an ammonia spike because of improper cycling, or not cycling, do not do water changes. The bacteria needs that ammonia to grow, you should add an ammonia binder like seachem prime at double the normal dose. This will make sure the ammonia is non-toxic temporarily while plants and bacteria can catchup to the bio load. Add that double dose every other day until no ammonia is left in the tank.
In my case, the plants are doing it all. Gave them a week to acclimate before adding life.....Where I would had started seeing ammonia readings, the plants started growing like they are infused with CO2.....they are the ultimate filters.
Your plants need to give lessons to mine. 😂 Thought my wife's tank was cycled.. maybe it wasn't fully, or maybe it crashed.. anyway.. ammonia is over 8, and a bacterial bloom to go with it. Only thing protecting the fish is low water temp, slightly below 7 pH, and adding ammo lock as a precaution. Also added an extra air stone, make sure they have oxygen. Fish are active and look happy at least. Plants are clearly growing, so hoping ammonia drops soon...
There is no doubt plants help but also wouldn't ammonia naturally disperse from the water over time anyway, if more wasn't being created by waste, I meen it's like tap water, you are meant to leave it out atleast 24hours for it to release impurities naturally wouldn't the same apply to ammonia?
Plants cannot absorb Ammonia directly, the bacteria on the surface converts them into usable nitrates, hence the decrease in ammonia, Here in this case, every surface in the water acts as a surface to grow good bacteria. so this bacteria converted the Ammonia into Nitrite->Nitrate
Plants cannot absorb ammonia directly, but many water column feeders can absolutely use ammonium directly. Many water column feeders like duckweed preferentially take up ammonium over nitrates because using ammonium requires less energy than nitrates to create the proteins the plant needs. The balance of ammonia and ammonium is determined by pH and temperature.
