Originally Posted by
WLcreations
Gotcha, thanks everyone! I'll try to get the ammonia down. I used to use Prime in my indoor aquariums but stopped after I found a video online that said Prime or "Any treatment which states that it will 'detoxify / bind ammonia, nitrite and nitrate' seems to have a retarding / starving effect on bacteria so achieving a proper set up with them is hard or impossible"
Here is the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5FkSTYkEAE&t=1666s
I don't know if this is true but I've tried to avoid using Prime just in case. Would doing a large water change help with getting ammonia down for a few days or would it have no effect?
For aeration, there isn't an air pump in the pond, just two waterfalls, 1 large and 1 small. Sorry, this is probably a dumb question but I know that oxygen helps bacteria grow so I assume adding more air could help increase more bacteria = turning more ammonia into nitrite but, just curious, does it help with increase PH also?
There have been many ponds that have been started successfully using the Prime/Safe ammonia binding chemicals. As for the large water change, check your tap water for ammonia first, as many water suppliers use chloramine as the treatment and it is a blend of chlorine and ammonia, so the tap water could be higher than the pond water with ammonia, in which case it would be worse than not doing a water change. Typically, I discourage water changes of more than 25% as it changes the temperature, pH, KH, and other factors that can be stressful to the fish.
If the KH is up, well over 100ppm, preferable over 150 ppm, you will find that without sufficient aeration, there will be some build up of carbon dioxide in the water, which is carbonic acid, which will lower the pH to a value less than 8.3. Carbon dioxide needs significant exposure to the atmosphere to be removed from the water.
It was found with bead filters in particular, that a high KH was needed to get them to cycle. I think part of the problem is that the bottom of an upflow bead pack is getting all of the ammonia and oxygen and starts to mature, but when the filter is backwashed many of those beads end up in higher locations, where there is a higher carbon dioxide level causing low pH and the good bacteria die due to mini pH crashes which will kill a filter.
Zone 7 A/B
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