Can a lot of new plants cause a nitrogen spike?

by **zambize** » Sun May 17, 2009 7:57 am

I have (had) a perfectly cycled 20 long that I've been planning to convert to a planted tank. I finally did it two days ago. Yesterday my one-year-old betta died and today four more tank residents dropped one after the other (neons and cories). I tested the water and it is having a nitrite spike. The only thing new is that I did finally plant the tank a couple of days ago with many new plants. Could adding so many new plants at once cause a nitrogen spike? I can't imagine what else could be causing this?!?!? The other parameters were barely a trace of ammonia and the nitrates were 10ppm.

Z

by **a1k8t31524** » Sun May 17, 2009 5:36 pm

the plants would not cause a nitrogen spike, but you ma have stirred up your substate when you were planting and let out a pockes of gas that might have ben traped in there and that could have caused it, or possiblt some of the water in the bags that your plants came in?

by **dizzcat** » Sun May 17, 2009 5:49 pm

I have never had fish die after I got new plants. Maybe something was on the plants themselves?

by **CedricAndCandy7566** » Mon May 18, 2009 3:04 am

A1 is probably right...stirring up the gravel when planting plants can cause all sorts of baddies to be released into the tank.

by **zambize** » Mon May 18, 2009 4:00 am

Hmmmmmm, perhaps that is what happened. I can't imagine how else my water quality could have been so adversely affected. I so bummed that I lost my prized beta, Bruno. It makes me want to rip out the plants. It's hard to enjoy them at the moment.

Thanks everybody.

Z

by **CedricAndCandy7566** » Mon May 18, 2009 4:19 am

Yeah it cant be good mate. But hey dont rip your plants out. In all honesty it was probably going to happen anyway. If you had pockets of bad substances in your substrate they would have been release at some point anyway. Planting the plants may have just sped up the inevitable...

by **zambize** » Mon May 18, 2009 7:49 am

I used Eco-complete as the substrate and the tank is new, only a month old. I cycled it in 10 days without fish using nitrifying bacteria. Could bad stuff have built up in the substrate that fast?

Z

by **CedricAndCandy7566** » Mon May 18, 2009 11:09 am

Oh I wouldn't have thought it would build up that fast. Unless it was remnants of the ammonia/nitrite etc from the cycling process itself...?

Can a lot of new plants cause a nitrogen spike?

8 posts