[APD] want some advise on peat/sand substrate

["Lady Jai" <hopewelt at sundialup_com>]

OK. I've recently had some problems, and that could be in part (though not
totally) due to my substrate. 

here's what I have:
125gallon tank
260 watts light
filtration: eheim 2128, viaaqua 750 and a temporary biowheel 330.
substrate:
50/50 peat sand mix for a 2" in front and around 3-3.5 iches in back. then
another inch of sand on top. the peat is the pure Canadian sphagnum. the
sand is mostly playsand.
plants are growing like weeds:
polysperma, hygro sunset, several sword plant varieties. cabomba, ambulia,
sagitaria subulata. the crypts seem in heaven and put out new leaves or
their existing leaves get larger. rotala indica, a dwarf water lily, various
aponogetons and anubaises. some Christmas moss. 
The plant growth is quite pleasing.

recently I had an outbreak of ick due to my removing the biowheel when I got
the viaaqua. the biowheel had a cellpore cartridge and a lot of healthy
bacteria. apparently, I needed it, because my tank went through a mini
cycle, and it took me awhile to figure out the problem. the temperature
increased to 83 for a few days as I was stuck doing schoolwork and had
thought our cool spurt was here to stay so I turned off the fan.
(everything's rather DIY)
part of this seems to make sense when I was reading an old post that
mentioned that ammonia is a primary concern of an anaerobic substrate and
that would make sense. if my bacteria was insufficient for the substrates'
ammonia production...

anyway, I was wondering, if it would behoove me to strip the tank, and take
the peat/sand mixture down to a depth of no thicker than 1.5 inches, ad back
my inch of sand and then replant. I'm a little concerned about totally
destroying the excellent growth I'm getting, but I don't want to put to much
risk on my  fishies. or, would it be sufficient to just try to make sure my
swords and heavy root feeders are evenly placed throughout the tank?

any comments, thoughts?

thanks
Jessica


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