YAY Melissa
So glad you have a little ammonia now. You must be thrilled :happy:
I added a concentration that allowed for 40 ppm's of nitrate, and 40 ppm's of nitrate does not harm your animals. It was in my experience that if I did not dose this much my plants would not grow nearly as well. There may have been some confusion between ammonia/ammonium, but I have been always been told that plants soak up ammonia but your right everything listed on the website is referring to ammonium.
I was trying to edit that post when my ISP shut down for 5 hours for the software and hardware upgrade they told me about a week ago
then my laptop refused to teather to Hubbys phone after 30 minutes of trying so I finally gave up and logged in on my phone, added what I needed and hit save only to have it freeze me out
I was NOT a happy camper.
It would have all started with one person misinterpreting the data and then posting their misunderstanding somewhere which was then taken and posted by others who don't understand the research or ever bothered to read the research if they had know where to find it and on and on it goes so I don't doubt for a moment that, that was what you have been told. Unfortunately it's not the truth and hopefully you understand that on a board full of beginners and other people seeking correct information about how to keep their axolotls, a pet with enormous misconceptions as it is, I had to correct it.
The amount of nitrate added should have read 9.1 not 91, apparently I misses the period while I was typing and now of course I can't edit that post.
I highly doubt the concentration of Nitrate in you tank after you dosed it was 40ppm it may very well be that in the bottle but by the time you add 40mls of Nitrate (pure) to 9.96L of another liquid you are looking at 0.04ppm in the tank.
The most effective and concentrated way of adding Nitrate to a tank is with Potassium Nitrate powder
PLEASE don't try this unless you have a LOT of experience with this sort of thing as it is an extremely dangerous thing to just be messing around with!
This chemical is hazardous in case of skin contact (irritant), of eye contact (irritant), of ingestion, of inhalation (lung irritant).
Prolonged exposure may result in skin burns and ulcerations. Over-exposure by inhalation may cause respiratory irritation.
Keep the item away from heat and other chemicals as it may cause explosions. See a MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for details.
KNO3 - Potassium Nitrate: Provides
Nitrogen (N) and
Potassium (K) for feeding aquarium plants.
Quite often in a planted aquarium the plants absorb so much nitrate, usually because of the addition of CO2 or insufficient ammonia production, that it becomes a shortage and limits the growth of the plants. So aquarists add it manually.
To make a typical stock solution add 40g of dry KNO3 powder to 500ml of
RO or
distilled water and then add 10ml of this per 100L of tank. This will give you a value of 5ppm. You are adding 500ppm Nitrate in every 10mL's it is extremely concentrated stuff and is not for beginners and I have no idea of the effect all the potassium would have on an axolotl.
- One quarter tsp or 1.4g of KNO3 with give you 4.5ppm increase of Nitrate in 190L (50 US gallons) of water.
- Note too much Nitrate in the aquarium can damage your aquatic animals and any increases in levels of nitrate should be done gradually.
Even with such a concentrated method of adding Nitrate you would still need to be adding 80mL of the stock solution for every 100L of tank to get an increase of 40ppm
OR 12.44g/3.1 teaspoons of powder in a 190L tank (1.6tsp per 100L)
But I WILL insist that an in tank concentration of 40ppm is the upper most safe level for most aquatic life. Any higher and it moves into the unsafe zone. Plants or not that is long accepted aquarium fact. When you tests show 40ppm it's time for a water change. There are some fish specise that will tollerate 50ppm fairly happily as long as the increase is made gradually over a few days but there are other more sensitive species (the ones with skin rather than scales like stingrays, and loaches) that require even lower levels.
The theory today is that prolonged exposure to elevated levels of nitrate may decrease the immune response, induce internal hematological and biochemical changes within the animal (behaviour changes) and may increase mortality. Especially in babies.
You must always acclimatize your animals to their new water slowly if there is a difference in nitrate levels between the water they came in and the water they are going into or the shock of higher levels very quickly may very well kill them.
I was also trying to add before that if you only have one or 2 animals in a very large tank, say 40/50 gallons with lots of plats it is entirely possible and highly probable that the animals will not produce enough ammonia to be converted to feed the plants and you would require some substitution. Everything I said before though was in regard to a tank that has the maximum number of animals in it or very close to it. ie. the maximum bioload and did my best to always state it as such. It is possible to reach an equilibrium between animals and plants and apparently your tank is on the under producing side of the equation.
