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Originally Posted by
Bojangles69
If you could read or find the ingredients in the plant food Id really like to know. I found more than a few companies who fell WAYY short of thier claims and we had to stop ordering from the manufacturer because of it.
So Im dying to know what form this nitrogen is coming in, if its not nitrates Im guessing it may be urea but see if it says on the plant food. Now as to the fish breathing for air.
Realize this. ANY dissolved salt or gas will force oxygen OUT of the water because like 95% of any salt or gas you can think of has a higher solubility rate than oxygen. So even too much plant food can force out O2 so make sure your using the right dosages. And the crazy part is this.
The rate of absorption of plant food to plant is proportional to the amount of plants you have in the tank. And If your doing weekly/monthly plant food doses and the plants arent eating all the food quick enough, you essentially will have a slowly but constant rising level of plant food.
Now the manufactures say its not harmful to fish. But either is a little bit of salt. But too much of ANYTHING will kill a fish, and often it doesnt take a lot of any dissolved salt to force out enough O2 to kill fish.
Now ammonia CAN exist in an acidic environment contrary to logical belief (because ammonias naturally basic). Im not gonna get deep into the chemistry BUT you can have a neutralized salt that creates an acidic ph (neutralized salt doesnt mean its neutral, again Im not getting into the chemistry unless your really interested)
But you will have an acidic ph (from the salt) with the basic ammonia but the ammonia and salt are nonreactive to each other thus the ph stays acidic while the ammonia continues to rise.
But the ammonia will still show up on a strip test so thats always your reassurance.
And for some reason just from what Ive seen I dont think its ammonia spikes. When ammonia spikes it doesnt just go up and dissappear, its spikes UP and STAYS UP.
Unless you have something in the water to treat ammonia (other than the crappy ammolock products that dont work) Than yes it will actually fluctuate up and down. But if your not testing positive for ammonia Id ditch the whole ammonia issue as even being a problem.
Im actually concerned with first the plant food, and second the ph (again im not sure what these fish require and it wont make a drastic difference but..)
on average should be around 7.4-7.6 for most fresh water fish than 8.2 for african cichlids.
If hypothetically speaking your breeder/distributer keeps these fish in anything (you said your tank was 6.8-6.9) less than a 5.8-5.9 or ABOVE 7.8-7.9 the fish can be going through ph shock. More likely though his ph would be higher, but I always test the breeders water before I put my fish in (except for ammonia because it will be flawed) my tank to make sure NOT that my water chemistry is PERFECT but to make sure my water mimics the breeders water than I slowly adjust it back to ideal from there. And YES A LOT of breeders have TERRIBLE water.
If you worked in some of these major distruting places youd realize why.
But those are just some of my thoughts/opinions.