Hello,

about 4 months ago, I had used 5 fertilizer sticks for terrestrial plants into the substrate of my tank (the substrate is aquaclay). After that, I have found out that these fertilizers contain vast amount of ammonioum in different forms. Right now, I am seeing brown, green and blue green algae on the gravel surface and at the gravel/glass boundary.

Can I somehow salvage the substrate, or should I just scrap it and rebuild the tank with new substrate?

Hi Timur,

Please tell us what else you might be adding to your tank and what type of tank you are working toward (ie. non-CO2, Excel, CO2) This will help get you a answer.

I wouldn't throw out your substrate yet, somebody out there has had worse and was able to salvage the substrate (me )

My aim is to have a heavily planted high tech tank. I currently have pressurized CO2, 4xT8 lighting, eheim 2213 filter. I have temporarily augmented the filtering with an eheim 2008 internal filter until I get a more powerful external fillter (i am looking into getting an eheim 2028)

Right now I am doing spot treatment with an H2O2 filled injector.