Ammonia spike

[Country joe]

I completed my change to a new tank yesterday moving everything from the old tank to the new, but I've been reading on Facebook about using old substrate can cause an aquarium surge, today everything is fine, fish are okay, but in case I get a spike I'm going to purchase a small bottle of Tetra Safe Start, also if it happened how much prime would you put in a 200 litre tank, anything else I could do, but fingers crossed nothing happened, today ammonia was nil, nitrite, nil, and PH 7.5.

 

[FranciscoB]

If moving substratum (cleaned) and lots of seeded media, AND not increasing fish biomass (more or less), there should not be any ammonia spikes or mini cycles. There should not be any need do add additional chemical, just wha has been the norm (decorator if needed).
However, one should be wise to monitor carefully for a few days, and do water changes as needed.

 

[Fishfunn]

I would have rinsed out your substrate so to prevent ammonia spikes. Hopefully you did that too.

 

[Country joe]

I would have rinsed out your substrate so to prevent ammonia spikes. Hopefully you did that too.

No, didn't want to kill bacteria.

 

[FranciscoB]

Just rinsing the substratum does not kill most of the bacteria colony. It would dislodge some, but then, there’s the decorations and seeded media. The like buggers (bacteria) are pretty tough.

 

[Fishfunn]

No, didn't want to kill bacteria.

Rinsing wont kill most of the bacteria, just get the waste out that lodged deep into it. The bacteria you dont want to kill are in your biological filter.

 

[Country joe]

I decided as its not expensive to put in a small bottle of Tetra Safe Start, I went to my local Range store, and it was a good job I looked, they had 6 small bottles and all were 6 months out of date, so i bought at Pets at home, even here you have to watch I remember picking up a bottle of API water treatment and it was a year out of date, you have to watch.
Don't know if the tetra safe start will help as a precaution, just have to keep water testing every couple of days.