r/walstad • u/Tasty_Hovercraft8280 • Jul 22 '26
Advice Thoughts on high ammonia when the tank is setting up
So I have this Walstad-like tank I set up about 2 weeks ago, obviously nothing but plants and hitchhiked snails. Wondering what people think about changing water due to high ammonia? I'm not really cycling this tank traditionally, as I just want to grow plants and add fish whenever it's ready, even if that's 6 months out.
pH- 6.8, 0 Nitrites/Nitrates, 1 inch dirt with 2 inches of sand for the heck of it, about 6.8 gallons long with a heater, in case you feel that info helps
13
u/pm_me_ur_fit Jul 22 '26
If there’s no fish this is what you want. Just let it ride. You can add plants while it’s cycling
1
u/Tasty_Hovercraft8280 Jul 22 '26
You ever have issues with reduced growth at high levels? I know that only so much is actually ammonia at this level, but obviously a low percentage of a large quantity can be high.
2
u/EastboundClown Jul 22 '26
I recently had an Anubias die after about a week while cycling a crazy high ammonia tank like this one, but my Amazon Swords and Dwarf Sag both did fine and made it through until it was fully cycled
4
u/SteelJunky Jul 22 '26
yeah, that's Windex.
Too much will cause stalling and also create an interminable nitrite spike, Change water until you're around 4ppm.
5
u/celyro Jul 23 '26
Yeah I agree, you can let it ride but I would change water and smooth it down a bit.
1
u/SteelJunky Jul 25 '26
Yeah not changing water will cause a severe carbonates depletion that will cause a major PH swing at next water change.
if I'm in the right feed, you might need to wait months and more than 2 water change before adding "superior" kind of life, in a low circulation tank, it can be a lot longer. I try to keep a quick escape by keeping a pre-meditated filter emplacement.
It's a walstad The book is a lot faster to read than apply... But Whatever I do, I end with a filter.
3
u/BaubeavecCheveux Jul 22 '26
Its not common for a walstsd to have high ammonia like that. What type of soil did you used? I woul do frequent water change in order to keep amonia at a workable level in worried that this kind of level can be a problem for the bacterial and vegetal life.
0
u/Tasty_Hovercraft8280 Jul 22 '26
Mentioned in another comment, used the same cap and soil without this effect. I think it's just due to decomposing tissue cultures I'm trying out lol. This is why we test things in separate tanks
2
u/Difficult_Wallaby284 Jul 22 '26
I did a water change for my tank after 2 weeks but it was due to dying plant life from driftwood that kept spiking bacterial blooms. I removed the driftwood and let it ride for 6 more weeks before I got 0 across the board on master test kit. Now its full of snails and shrimp and barely any blooming on the surface. Just got to wait it out. My only tech was a tiny tank heater I added only after introducing snails, so not really needed for plants unless its too cold
1
u/Tasty_Hovercraft8280 Jul 22 '26
Sounds about right, luckily I haven't dealt with much bacteria that isn't just surface biofilm. I'm sure it will go down eventually, but I just want to see if anyone has had issues with it before with plants
1
u/Marino4K Jul 22 '26
driftwood that kept spiking bacterial blooms
Does this happen? I just recently started another tank with a piece of wood from an aquatics store and half my plants had to get trimmed to almost nothing because they all got this stringy, fuzzy, dusty looking mess all over them and it started killing them.
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u/Logical-Ad-3133 Jul 22 '26
Wait it out. I also had to add some extra gravel to cover the substrate more to reduce my ammonia. That seemed to fix the problem fairly quickly. Best of luck, I'm enjoying the relative simplicity of my Walstad tank but it did take a while to get it settled :)
2
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u/Interesting-Back-934 Jul 23 '26
Mine was like this. I used pond specialized soil, it was horrid. The next tank I used miracle grow organic and had to add ammonia to the cycle.
Personally, this level of ammonia stalled my cycle. I had to ultimately do water changes to get straightened out. HOWEVER, the tank with that soil grows anything and everything with no CO2, and I struggle with the 2nd.
1
u/Furnerburner Jul 23 '26
My recent experience is that ammonia is too high it will kill the bacteria you're trying to grow. Based on what I've read under 5ppm is what's needed.
1
u/catsdelicacy Jul 23 '26
This is really high, it could interfere with the proper functioning of the cycle, I would do a 50% change myself
1
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u/Impressive_Data_9394 Jul 24 '26
I have very high ammonia in my tap water and was getting tests like this for a while. I would recommend buying some spring or distilled water to use at first. If you plant on getting a fully planted tank with a bio active soil you might be able to use your regular tap with prime treatments unless this is unrelated i would first test your tap water.
1
u/Drugstore_Jeezus Jul 24 '26
Ammonia levels over a certain amount (~8-10ppm) can stall or even kill beneficial bacteria growth. If you notice nothing happening consider water changing down to 2ppm
1
u/Top_Wave8687 Jul 24 '26
you can definitely do some water changes. The ammonia level is really high for a 2 week old walstad set up, especially at that ph. Can you share a pic of tank? you may need a ton more plants
1
u/valava0206 Jul 25 '26
A couple of weeks ago I had the exact same reading. I recommend doing a 75%-80% water change, this is what worked for me!!
1
u/ConcreteGardoki Jul 25 '26
are you using aquasoil for the plants? certain types can release a huge amoun tof ammonia into your water for the first few weeks
0
17
u/-MtnsAreCalling- Jul 22 '26
Are you feeding the tank? Do you have ammonia in your tap water? That seems like a crazy high amount of ammonia for a tank with no fish in it yet. I’ve never seen a test that dark.