Once the tank is cycled your ammonia shouldn't ever be detected just nitrate will show up, I think this is your problem and the reason your pothos keep dying from lack of n03, with your huge bio load you should be reading way more 40-80ppm, are you on a drip?
How long has the tank been set up, what fish and when did you add them into the tank? Thx
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http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?504763-Cheap-plants-less-nitrate!-POTHOS
*Go S. Vettel #1 RBR! 3 BACK TO BACK WDC AND CONSTRUCTERS!
No drip. Running two 2217 and one 2250 eheim.
Tank has been setup for a year or so but the eheims came from a 125 I had setup prior for almost two years so the bacteria has been in there prior to this 150 breeder. I rotate the maintenance on the eheims every 5ish months and only try to fully clean one at a time. When hoses get nasty I clean those out as well and whenever I see a loss of flow of visible build up.
My stock has changed drastically in the past few weeks, a lot going out and some stuff coming in. The ammonia spike occured after over feeding shrimp talapia and siversides when I got this 14" flower because everyone made me kind of paranoid about it getting stressed or having issues holding its own during feeding.
Prior to the over feeding I never had any ammonia issues and haven't had any since either.
Currently have a 7" mm, 11" orbignyi, 14" flower
3 5" dats, 1 6" dat
8" silver aro,
as of lastnight 4 5" clown loaches (to help clean scraps)
and within the last week went from 1 8" weeksii poly to 3 all under 8" (also to clean scraps)
Have since the ammo spike removed a 6" oscar and prior to that had a 12" endli and 14" ornate which have been traded for the larger dat and the clownloaches to help clean up as I suspect the problem was the vast over feeding for the week or two after I got the flower ray to ensure its survival. The rays tend to move the sand and cover the massivore pellets they didn't eat and maybe this was rotting away beneath the sand.
Tho I'm heavily stocked I do 50% water change every 5 to 10 days (max) and test and log my water parameters. Before this freak ammonia spike only Nitrates would get a little out of wack if I stretched the waterchange to 10days and have been over feeding.
The ammonia seemed to show up after the flower was being over fed and maybe the oscars messy pellet habits.
So far so good since and I haven't chnaged anything about my routine (after several 50%w/c to rid the ammonia)
As a precautionary measure I got a 1260 pump today for my 2250. Also I am Looking for an upgrade. Something 8x 3 x 20"ish. Because I'm well aware that eveything needs more space especially that flower.
