Help With Ammonia Spike

[jameshughes1989]

Hi guys, heres the story.

I had my 2 ft cube upstairs, but me and my partner decided its going to go in the dining room. Today was the big move.

The tank was filtered by an external, so I turned that off, but kept tank water in it, keeping the media wet. I emptied the tank, but saved half the water, and moved the tank downstairs. We decided on a new substrate, for looks and this was going to be planted so we used tropica plant substrate topped with black sand. I then filled the tank back up (50% fresh water). Set the external up and away I went, whilst getting the tank up to temp. The filter was only off for 3 hours, max! This tank has always had perfect test results since cycling. Ive just tested the tank and it has a high ammonia reading,

WHY??

-Ive turned a filter off overnight before with no ill effects, so surely the filter being off wouldnt be effected for that small amount of time?

-The tank only had 1 betta in and did only have that 1 fish when I set it back up (He is now in a different tank).

-Could the tropica plant substrate cause the spike?

-Any other ideas?

-What would the best thing to do now? Im thinking, let it mini-cycle? Keep testing, water change when ammonia is at 0, and then put the betta back in?

Any advice or suggestions for why this happened would be appreciated. If you need any more info let me know

Cheers, James

 

[Verminator89]

Tropica plant substrate will havge caused a temporary fluctation in your readings. All the good stuff for plants in the substrate aye, causes more trouble than it does good at first. Let it settle for a day, maybe two. Things should settle down again. Not ideal i know, but its how it goes

 

[mtv8dmarine]

The substrate is the issue two-fold. First, you removed the mature substrate which actually works in tandem with mature filter media. Second, the new substrate is introducing new stuff into your water table. In time things will settle back to normal.

 

[jameshughes1989]

Okay guys thanks, sorry I should of mentioned, I didnt have a substrate in there before. So is this a fake reading from the substrate or is it an actual ammonia spike? I have read that some fertilisers can make false readings, this is why I ask.

So, you think it will settle down in a couple of days? Ill keep testing

Thanks

 

[mtv8dmarine]

Well I think it's the only logical conclusion. You did have your filter off but you did well in keeping it wet. You wouldn't have killed off the beneficial bacteria population so the only thing you have changed to the water table really is the substrate. I don't know how long it will take because I don't use anything but pea gravel at the bottom of my tank but I would imagine that in time it will right itself. I just don't know how long.

 

[jameshughes1989]

Okay then, cheers. Well Ive made another thread in the planted tank part of the forum, I think Ill get more people that have used the substrate go through that way. Thanks for the input though and ill keep testing the water.

Cheers

 

[SuperColey1]

Just to clarify things a little:

Tropica Substrate DOES NOT contain any 'good stuff for plants'!!!nor does it introduce 'new stuff to the water table'!!!

Unlike most other 'nutrient rich' substrates, Tropica is supplied 'nutrient poor'. The way it works is due to its high CEC (Cation Exchange Capacity) where it 'stores' nutrient which soaks into it from the water column so that the plants can access it via their roots. Therefore for it to have 'goodies' in it they have to be introduced from elsewhere.

Whether that is via water column dosing or via natural fish waste and general detritus is a user defined addition.

Therefore I can confirm that the Tropica has not caused a spike in ammonia. If anything it will have already 'stored' some of that ammonia meaning the spike would have been much higher than it is!!!

The cause you need to find out but I never got a spike to the level that livestock even reacted from changing substrates!!!

It is known with products like ADA AS that they leech ammonia at the beginning but with that we do suggest the first month or so monitoring and not stocking during that time.

AC