Couple Of Fishless Cycle Questions.

[DJC1]

Hi.

As I am planning on having live plants in my tank, should I add them during the fishless cycle, or after? And can someone tell me how many a 65l tank should be able to sustain?

Also, should the light be left 'on' during the cycle, or 'off', or a bit of both...or doesn't it matter?

Cheers.

 

[backtotropical]

Doesn't really matter if you have plants in during the cycle. They will not bother either way.

Lights doesn't really matter too much either, although i would say leave them off as you might just grow yourself some algae unnecessarily if you have them on.

 

[rdd1952]

You can add the plants before hand but depending on how many you add, it could have some effect on the process. Plants will actually use ammonia in it's original state rather than just using nitrate. If you heavily plant a tank, you may not see much nitrite and have a very slow rise in nitrate as the plants will use the ammonia before it is transformed.

If you don't put he plants in then you don't need the lights as they won't have any effect on he cycling process. If you add plants tough, you will definitely need the lights.

 

[DJC1]

Cheers guys, I'll just wait for the cycle to complete then and add the plants later.

 

[Rooster]

In my experience, plants will mess up the testing, and have no food - unless you add food, which further confuses testing !
I would leave them out until the tank is mature.