Ammonia and Plant Fertiliser

[cldlr76]

Hi,

A am having a few problems with the ammonia in my new tank, it has been up to .5ppm but is coming down (now .25ppm) after a couple water changes and no feeding the fish for a couple of days.

I have been using the flourish plant food once or twice or week while the ammonia was zero. Should I continue using the flourish while the ammonia is present or should I wait until it is zero again.

Thanks

[DiverJohn]

In my opinion I would be inclined to stop all together on the flourish until your tank is cycled & ammonia is nil.

Flourish wont be adding any ammonia or nitrites, which are the two "bad" nitrogen compounds in your tank at the moment.

Your fish will stress if ammomia or nitrites get to high so you need to do regular water changes until ammonia is nil, and if you are doing regular water changes you are effectivly tipping your floursh down the drain.

HTH

John

[Faran]

That last paragraph of DiverJohns was a little confusing so let me clarify. You should be doing frequent water changes (not just regular - daily) until the levels are zeroed. Regular (weekly or bi-weekly) water changes don't waste the Flourish.

[DiverJohn]

Thanks BK....

Once you get things established you shoudl be dosing florish at a rate that you plants use all the fertilizer, you do a water change and then top up ferts again till the next week.

[Warren]

Unless I'm mistaken, adding iron to your tank will not make ammonia or nitrite more toxic.

I'd keep adding it at the normal rate. Plants use ammonium as fertiliser so the faster your plants grow, the faster the ammonia level will drop. If you drop your pH below 7 (6-5 - 6.8 is best for plants anyway) then all the ammonia will convert to ammonium and be non-toxic at the level you've got.

As soon as the ammonia level starts to drop the nitrite level will drop as well...

The plants will use it up and everything will settle. If you don't have enough plants, you could always add some more. Use fast growing ones like Hygrophila that get most of their nutrients from the water. These are also some of the cheapest plants available.