Cycling With Fish And Plants.

[community begginer]

is it ok to add some live plants into your still fish cycling tank??
if so what are some good, strong types of plants to add??
regards community begginer

preferably ones that arent eaten to frequintly by platies, guppies and swordtails.

 

[community begginer]

can anyone please help me??
all i ask is for your hounest oppinion.

 

[Bufo Bill]

I'm a newbie myself, and I have had plants in scince day one. No fish yet though. Good luck with your set up!
B.B.

 

[Squid]

My guess would be that if you are cycling with fish, then its pretty much business as usual for plants.. If its a beginner tank i will presume that you dont have addtional lighting, and you are not using CO2. This is the same with my tank, and limits the list of plants you can have.. However, they are on this list because they are pretty hardy plants and so would be good for a beginner aquarium..

Have a look at THIS LINK to see a list and discussion on easy to deal with plants.. Things like anubias for the foreground, java fern for the middle and vallis for the back.

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Squid

 

[Phoenixfish]

i did my cycle with both fish and plants, and it was fine but i wouldnt really do it again, i had a lot if pland die off and had to do quite a lot of water changes to begin with but is ok now, i also have anubias (i think) and am looking for a java,

 

[Marisa_allen]

I did a fishless cycle with a fully planted tank and the lights on 10 hours a day. I only got a little brown algae and would recommend this method to anyone.

I noticed there is not much info on the web as whether to cycle with or without plants. I read that cycling with plants can slow down the process although I didnt notice that in my tank as it cycled in 14 days or so.

I know I am not an expert on these things but in my own opinion the quicker you get plants into your aquarium the better, otherwise there is nothing to compete with the algae, especially at the cycling stage when you get the algae blooms etc.

 

[Triumph]

Hi,

I'm new and cycled my tank from day 1 with fish and plants as I understand it helps the process and keeps algae at bay as the plants compete with the algae for nutrients.

I looked on the forums for plants which were easy to grow as a beginner without much light. I have a 15 gall tank with a single Arcadia tropical fish lamp which seems to provide sufficient light for my plants as my tank isn't too deep.

I have Elodea Densa ( grows like crazy!), Wisteria, Vallis, Hygrpphilia Polyperma, & some sort of grassy thing. All are growing ok. Some of the leaves went brown after they were put in but I have just trimmed them off and new ones have grown in their place. I used Tetra Plant root tablets as fertiliser which you just crumble and push into the gravel next to the roots.

I have 4 platties and 5 lemon tetras which don't seem to bother eating the plants.

Hope this helps and good luck with your fish and plants.

Billy the Fish

 

[keiths]

My guess would be that if you are cycling with fish, then its pretty much business as usual for plants..

If you are cycling with just plants is there anything different you have to look out for? Should I be adding some sort of CO2? I'm not planning on running CO2 later.

 

[mark.w.jones]

My guess would be that if you are cycling with fish, then its pretty much business as usual for plants..

If you are cycling with just plants is there anything different you have to look out for? Should I be adding some sort of CO2? I'm not planning on running CO2 later.

Plants basically "feed" on the nitrate produced in the nitrogen cycle. In the early stages of cycling your tank without fish there won't be much in the tank. Ditto if you're cycling with fish as you can only have 2 / 3 in the beginning. Therefore, I would suggest that plants wouldn't get on too well in the early stages of cycling your tank. Once you start getting some nitrate readings in your tank I would have thought your plants would get on better.

Saying that, I fishless cycled with plants from day 1 . My twisted Vallis looks crap and i'm binning it soon, but the amazon sword and another species are all OK touch wood. Read this for easy to grow plants for beginners:

http/www.aquamaniacs.net/forum/cms_view_article.php?aid=38

 

[phlawed]

I did a fishless cycle with a fully planted tank and the lights on 10 hours a day. I only got a little brown algae and would recommend this method to anyone.

I noticed there is not much info on the web as whether to cycle with or without plants. I read that cycling with plants can slow down the process although I didnt notice that in my tank as it cycled in 14 days or so.

I know I am not an expert on these things but in my own opinion the quicker you get plants into your aquarium the better, otherwise there is nothing to compete with the algae, especially at the cycling stage when you get the algae blooms etc.

i also see that you have this in your sig
nitrate 0
which is not good as this should be 10-30 on average

 

[Torrean]

plants eat ammonia...if you have the right plant fish ratio your tank will theoretically never cycle because the plants will absorb all the ammonia. Therefore having plants in a new tank is GREAT. It will prevent the tank from completely cycling however. So if you have a really heavily planted tank you shouldn't remove all the plants at once and expect the filter to take care of the entire bioload instantly.