Ammonia-Eating Plants?

[RobberyinCSharp]

Hi all,

I am currently struggling with a high ammonia issue in my new 10-gallon, fish-in cycle tank. I am going to try my best to use a natural method of removing the ammonia before I use chemicals, especially for the sake of my fishes' stress levels. I currently have a Wisteria and Ribbon plant that do a wonderful job of keeping the nitrate levels down. Does anyone know of an aquatic plant that specifically feeds on ammonia? I would certainly appreciate the help!

 

[RadaR]

Should be doing water changes. Plants will utilize the nitrogen in ammonia more easily than nitrate. So if your plants arent even keeping down the ammonia then they wont be keeping down nitrate. You're probably just not at that stage yet in the cycle where nitrate is produced and assuming its the plants. Also ribbon plants are not aquatic so definetly wont be helping.
Water changes are your friend.Get that ammonia down.

 

[Teephphah]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that, if you bought your wisteria at the same place that sold you your ribbon plant as an aquarium plant (which is probably very similar to the place where I bought MY wisteria - and ribbon plant, once upon a time ), your wisteria is new to being submerged too. In which case, it probably isn't doing a whole heck of a lot to deal with your amonia/nitrate issues yet either.

Are the leaves on your wisteria sort of rounded with serated edges or are they more "forked?" If they're still round, your plant still has some metamorphosizing to do. The good news is that once it's converted to it's underwater form, it'll (literally) grow like a weed and do a great job of gobbling up all of those unwanted chemical elements.

Bottom line: definitely stay on top of the water changes.