starfish615
Aquarium Advice Regular
So I decided to take on the daunting task of changing my substrate and the plan was to keep all my decor/plants/fish in a large tub with running an airstone with water from my tank and keep my canister filter running to keep my bacteria alive in there as well. This did not go to plan, my water level got too low and even after adding a bit of water back couldn’t get my filter going without refilling completely. So.. after all was said and done my ph was tanked to 6 or less and 0 nitrates. This was about a week and a half ago. Since then I have been used seachem nuetral ph additive, seachem stability bottled bacteria, seachem prime to neutralize ammonia, and root tabs to keep my plants alive. I have been water testing daily and never had a nitrite spike, my ammonia levels have only been up to .50 ppm (I have done a couple small water changes) but now my nitrates have been reading at 20 the last few days.. did something magical happen and my biological filter bounced back quickly? Or are the nitrates simply from the root tabs or bacteria I added and not going to stay unless I keep it up?