lol no definitely not. my tank was a BBA machine when I first switched to plants.
first thing you need to do is get the bba under control. remove as much of it as you can. you can use either H2O2 or excel to kill whatever you can't remove. you already said you lowered your lights, so that's good. keep the CO2 levels high and the BBA should go away.
and yes, changing yours substrate is probably the root of the ammonia.
can you give a list a plants you have in the tank?
first thing you need to do is get the bba under control. remove as much of it as you can. you can use either H2O2 or excel to kill whatever you can't remove. you already said you lowered your lights, so that's good. keep the CO2 levels high and the BBA should go away.
and yes, changing yours substrate is probably the root of the ammonia.
can you give a list a plants you have in the tank?
