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It’s called a bacterial bloom and you sucked out a whole myriad of beneficial organisms residing in the substrate. Are you seeing any issues with livestock?

I don’t think tap water is all that great for fish personally. I lose fish over the course of a few weeks/months when changing water. I don’t lose any when I just top up. It goes against the grain but I can’t deny what I observe. I’ve been keeping water and fish for what feels like an age...

Seachem Equilibrium should do it as the salts are all sulphate based. Calcium sulphate, magnesium sulphate, potassium sulphate, iron sulphate etc

That would be the best solution in my opinion. Attach a spray bar and set to spray at the surface from back to front. If the flow is still too much you can widen the holes in the spray bar with a drill to reduce the exit velocity.

Can a spray bar be attached to the filter?

Yeah nerite snail eggs. They need to be in softer water for them to stop laying eggs. They’re also a pain to remove.

Hi All, I would just like to add that KH will only affect the nitrogen cycle under conditions we present during the fishless cycle (high levels of ammonia) In a normal aquarium. Average ammonia concentrations are in the micrograms per litre which gives rise to microbes that are capable of...

Hi and welcome. What you have been told isn’t necessarily wrong. The root tabs and dosing is fine. People do this all over the world and have magnificent looking tanks. The planted tank world established some time ago that fertilisers do not CAUSE algae but they will FEED algae that has...

Personally I used to clean canister filters only when the flow rate was visibly reduced. Less flow = less oxygen for the microbes which can be detrimental in a closed system container such as a canister filter.

Yeah just as an experiment. You can do a water change to get it back to where you want it to be.

You could try adding some sodium bicarbonate to boost the alkalinity which is one of the things that gets drawn on by the microbes when performing a fishless cycle. If the alkalinity is depleted then the cycle could stall. It would be interesting to hear if the ammonia started dropping...

They may well do depending on diet but most people (despite species) tend to feed foods with mostly similar ingredients. Like we said, the possibilities are endless [emoji846]

There was a couple of studies that were around aquarium filters and only one of them out of around 50 had AOB detected. They all varied wildly in terms if maintenance and only one of them used RO water. All Of them had AOA and COMAMMOX nitrospira as the abundant nitrifiers Read post #7 here...

Yes, the microbial communities were said to be dependent also on livestock. Maybe not that the fish produce them, but their byproducts I would imagine. The microbial communities may also differ depending on the foods we feed etc. there really is just no end to the possibilities.

If that is correct then it is good news because that to me would mean that the number of B would diminish and increase the number of A, effectively keeping things functioning no matter what direction our water parameters take. This subtle changes in microbial assemblage will transition at the...

They do indeed both exist. The link you shared accounts for one of the COMAMMOX studies and they indicate that COM.nitrospira seem to prefer acidic mediums. These are recently discovered strains and discounts Ammonia Oxidising Archaea (AOA)The information that spawned the whole idea that low...

Don’t worry about the KH. My KH is the same. My tap water comes from the reservoirs in the Lake District and is naturally very soft. Crushed coral in theory will raise pH initially because the water will be acidic enough to break parts of it down. As the calcium carbonate dissolves and...

It can affect nitrification but as the microbial assemblage is constantly changing based on ammonia, levels, pH, oxygen, even livestock the predominant microbes in aquariums filters are are Archaea. Unfortunately we just can’t blanket statement that pH stalls nitrification because the...

PH will stall the nitrogen cycle if you have ammonia oxidising bacteria as your primary nitrification microbe but bacteria are NOT the primary nitrifying organism in aquarium filters. The primary nitrifying organism for nitrification in freshwater aquarium filters are a type of Archaea which...

Bacteria only play a key role in the nitrogen cycle if the ammonia is high. How high I don’t know but we are likely talking water treatment facility levels. These bacteria use alkalinity carbonate during nitrification which, when exhausted will lower the pH. Here’s the interesting bit. The...

This might also help to make this easier to understand. ‘The important bit is that this is an equilibrium, as we add CO2 we reduce pH, but we don't reduce alkalinity, and as CO2 levels fall 2HCO3- (bi-carbonate) and Ca++ (calcium) ions will come out of solution as the salt "limestone" = CaCO3...

I think this is one of the best ways I can find to describe it. ‘It is only when you add CO2 (H2CO3) as your acid that the dKH doesn't change, because you are adding both HCO3- and H+, they are conjugated acid and base pair. If you add another acid, like hydrochloric (HCl), you've added an...

Co2 does drop pH but has no bearing on KH or vice versa. They both exist as part of an equation based on pH. In a tank without injection the proportion of co2-bicarbonate-carbonate is dependent on pH. When you add more co2 the pH changes but it doesn’t use the buffering capacity like other...

As mentioned, you probably don’t need co2. Never ever focus on what is happening to older leaves. Only new leaves. You said the plants are propagating so is there really an issue. Are the new leaves green, nicely shaped and large? Or are they pale, twisted and small? Unfortunately, lumens...

Co2 won’t use KH. It doesn’t work like that.