Does A Heavily Planted Tank Need To Be Cycled?

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CrazyDiamond88

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Tank: aquanano 40, 12g
Plants: hair grass, hc, willow moss, micro sword
I dose co2 daily and use fert tabs.

I am just wondering if I need to cycle it?
I've read online that if a tank is heavily planted, cycling is unnecessary as the plants deal with the ammonia.

Is this true? :/

Here is my tank
 

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A tank should have 75% of the substrate planted with fast-growing stem plants before you can consider not cycling it.  Yours will need to be cycled.
 
Research about "Silent Cycling". You will find some good results and lots of information :)
 
Looking at your tank, if you were to wait for the plants to grow somewhat, and you added one small fish at a time, the cycle would not take long to complete.
 
I guess it also depends on what you are planning to put in there and the bioload
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The plants need to get much bigger. When they do you can start to add fish. However, there is a really easy way to know where you stand in this respect.
 
Once the plants have grown in a bunch, do a test. Add 2 ppm of ammonia to the tank, test it in 12 hours. If there is 0 Ammonia you can add a bunch of fish, but not quite a full load to leave some wiggle room. If the the ammonia is not 0 in 12 hours test again at the 24 hour mark. If it is 0 then, add fish, but make it a bit lower load- something about 50-65% or so.
 
If the tank fails to clear all the ammonia in 24 hours, then you have two choices. You can continue to dose ammonia according to the directions for fishless cycling and wait for the process to complete. You should reduce by 1 day the intervals between testing though since the plants will accelerate things.
 
The other choice is to add a few fish and proceed as if it is a fish in cycle. The plants should prevent any real build up of ammonia or nitrite because the ammonia load will be low and the plants will handle most of it. You may even never read ammonia or nitrite. But you should still add gradually to be sure. And never add any more fish if you have either an ammonia or a nitrite reading.
 
Thanks for your responses :)

I want to first add 6 ember tetras to the tank once it's safe to, then my betta (tetras first to reduce his territorial instinct).

So I should grow my plants more and then add the tetras?
 
Use the ammonia test I suggested when the time comes. That will tell you what you can or cannot do.
 

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