Help needed with water quality

[The-rence]

Hi all,
I have a 4ftX2X2 planted tank with sump setup for about 2 months now with ADA amazonia. Despite the age of the setup, the biological filter does not seem to kick in. Ammonia has constantly very high around 4ppm with 0 nitrite and nitrates. I'm using predominatly biohome and biohome+ in my sump.I've tried various methods including adding bacteria and salvaging media from my very old and matured tank but nothing seemed to work. The only good side are that my fishes (i've some altums and discus ) are doing very well despite the water quality.

I'm very bothered with the high ammonia levels and is considering increasing the pH to try get the biofiltration to start. Any bros can advise how to kick start the biological filtration or have face similar problems in tanks with low pH. Thanks!

[Urban Aquaria]

Do you have a high density of fast growing plants in the tank to soak up the nutrients? Or is the tank just lightly planted with slower growing plants and focusing mainly on the fishes instead?

ADA Amazonia aquasoil is designed as an active soil for planted tanks which provides lots of ammonia and nutrients to turbo boost plant growth (ideal for people who want to grow out their aquascapes fast)... but if you are running a tank with few plants and are mainly using the soil as a sort of pH buffer, then you'll definitely need to do very frequent water changes to flush out all the ammonia and nutrients that is not being used.

I've seen people with shrimp-only tanks (those have very few or no plants) that use ADA Amazonia aquasoil doing 80%-90% water changes every day for 2 weeks just to flush out all the excess ammonia and nutrients.

Do note that the fishes in the tank are also producing waste too, so you have to consider that even more ammonia from the fishes are currently being added to the water that the filter has to handle.

Btw, any reason why you added fishes before the tank is fully cycled?

The lower pH from the soil's buffering feature does slow down beneficial bacteria growth, but lower pH also keeps a percentage of ammonia in the less harmful ammonium state, which may explain why your fishes are still okay at the moment, though with such consistently high ammonia levels there is a chance the percentages which are toxic may be affecting them but they are not exhibiting issues yet.

Most likely due to the large amount of aquasoil being used due to the tank size, the beneficial bacteria needs more time to process all that huge combined amount of ammonia supply from the soil and fish bio-load, so you'll just have to wait for the beneficial bacteria to establish and process the ammonia, and also do more water changes to flush out the excess ammonia and nutrients.

Don't add buffers to raise the pH as that will start to reduce the buffering capacity of the aquasoil and the change in pH will create a shift in the ammonia toxicity. In addition, the fishes may be subjected to changes in water conditions that they cannot tolerate.

[The-rence]

Thanks for the reply ! Yes its quite heavily plants with crypts and tenalleus.The crypts have all recovered following melting. I've also have patches of moss to "absorb" the spike of ammonia expected from aquasoils. I would thought that though the tank will not be fully cycled at least it would have begun and I would at least see traces of nitrite and nitrate being built up but with both inidcators having 0 reading suggests that nothing has begun and got me a bit puzzeled.

I've initially added some fishes as test subjects as well as to cycle the tank.They were doing fine for a week or so. As, I've had some pH issues in the tank which houses my altums and discus (shot too high) i've to make a desperate last minute effort to rehouse them to a tank (my current 4ft tank) with low pH though i knew it will not be fully cycled as they dont seem to be too happy and about to go. Since they all recovered and appears much better than they were before after the transfer i didnt bother to transfer them out since then as it was meant to be their final home.They have been in there for about 1 month now. Well looks like i need to transfer them out

[Urban Aquaria]

I think your best solution is to just do more frequent and large water changes to reduce the ammonia to more manageable levels for the beneficial bacteria to process. Its possible that once the bacteria population grows to a sufficient level, the cycle could start to progress more quickly.

If you have house plants, don't throw away the removed tank water, its full of rich nutrients so can recycle it to water your plants.

Crypts and moss are naturally slower growing plants so their nutrient take-up wouldn't be as significant, the tenellus can grow fast eventually but they will still need time to establish first then start growing. Increase the Co2 injection (if possible) to further boost the plant growth and nutrient take-up rate.

Usually when people refer to planting densely from the start, the whole tank is filled full of plants (mostly fast growing ones), until every square inch is planted. If you look at Amano's ADA gallery tank setup videos, the amount of plants they add to their tanks at startup is crazy... but they have near-infinite supply from their own plant farm anyways.

Its possible that nitrites and nitrates are actually being processed and created in your tank, but its in such tiny amounts at the moment that the existing plants already absorb it as soon as its created, hence they remain undetectable. The high levels of accumulated ammonia is a huge backlot to process and the current beneficial bacteria population is simply not processing it fast enough yet.

In the meantime, you can also try adding floating plants to the tank (ie. frogbits, salvinia minima, dwarf water lettuce etc) along with ample light so that they can help soak up all the excess nutrients, that can help speed up the cycle too.

[Shadow]

Have you check your test kit? say measure the tap water. Just in case your test kit spoil.

[The-rence]

Urban Aquaria, injecting more CO2? wont it lower the pH further resulting in even slower built up of the bb?
Robert, Yup the test kits are newly bought

[Urban Aquaria]

Urban Aquaria, injecting more CO2? wont it lower the pH further resulting in even slower built up of the bb?

Yes, Co2 injection does lower the pH when its in operation, but in planted tanks the slower bacteria growth is less of concern because the additional Co2 supply will help existing plants photosynthesize more actively and grow faster, which in turn increases their ammonia and nutrient take-up rate. For this type of approach, the plants themselves handle more of the overall filtration process.

For a planted tank system to be balanced, its not just about solely maintaining a stable colony of beneficial bacteria, but its also how the parameters are managed... if the tank environment encourages the plants to do a good job of taking up the ammonia and nutrients, then there is less work for the beneficial bacteria to do too.

Do note that the beneficial bacteria population in a tank will naturally increase and decrease according to the amount of ammonia and nitrites they have to process, hence in a densely planted tank with healthy growth, its possible the beneficial bacteria population can actually stay quite small in comparison (since the plants are doing most of the work).