Ada Amazonia And Our Hard Water

[bcbishop]

hey guys. Anyone here use Ada Amazonia? I have my 20g long with Eco complete and the water in that tank stays pretty hard. I do have some drift wood that lowers it a bit but my plants and fish are doing great. My 10 gallon has Ada Amazonia and drift wood as I was going to make it a shrimp only tank. The water in that tank obviously it a lot softer. I have noticed my plants don't do as well in it as they have been getting a lot of black algae growth. Anyone else here have similar problems with soft water? Are there any concerns when using substrate like this to buffer the water so much?

Thanks

Edited May 26, 2015 by bcbishop

[Iceturf]

ADA will buffer your water. I was under the impression that using ADA substrate +Tap water = bad because it drains the substrates buffering ability - that it is better to use ADA with RO water.

I don't know if that is true or not, but could be a concern.

[jumpsmasher]

I used Amazonia in most of the shrimps tanks, but mainly with RO water. never really had much issues with my plants, but i mainly keep mosses, java fern and bucephalandra. I do have friends who use Amazonia with a wide variety of plants without issue.

One thing to remember is that Amazonia contain lost of nutrients so if you are dosing ferts you will cut back for the first little while. If it is not heavily planted you will also want to decrease your lighting period. Using BBA is a sign of excess nutrients / nttrates. You can kill it fairly easily using spot treatment of excel / metricide

What type of setup do you have (high tech, CO2, ferts) and what type of plants do you have? How long has the tank been running and what is your maintenance schedule like?