Doing Fish Cycle With Plants

[bobbicus]

hello all

i have found this ................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.

have 5 z.danios in my tank and 2 amazon swords - fluval 2 plus filter and 8 inch air curtain - will my tank ever cycle properly and will i get the ammonia and nitrIte spikes


i thought plants used the nitrAtes as a type of food? not ammonia?

help please from those in the know

thankyou rob

 

[zig]

Nitrates are a by product of ammonia after it has been through the nitrogen cycle, basically it goes like this: Your fish poop and create ammonia, this in turn is converted into nitrite, after nitrite it converted into nitrate, this is known as the nitrogen cycle, all of this action is carried out in most fish tanks by the bacteria in your filter (presuming the tank is cycled) whereas in a heavily planted fast growing tank the ammonia will be used by the plants before it gets to the other stages, so you never get ammonia spikes etc.

Anyway heres a very good guide to a cycle done with plants, i have done this myself and it works very well, just dont add lots of fish initially, just a few to begin with. This method of course is only suitable in fast growing planted tanks where the ammonia produced by the fish is guarenteed to be used up by the plants quickly before it can be harmful as in a normal cycle.

Rex's guide to silent cycling

You filter will cycle eventually as normal even using this method, it will take longer than a fish cycle or a fishless cycle, but then again you dont have to worry about it because the plants are doing all the work anyway and no harm will come to your fish whatsoever if you do it properly.

 

[bobbicus]

aye i know about the nitrogen cycle (i should do by now i read enuff on it) - but when i read that i needed clarification......

cos if the penny dont drop i dont understand it....i'm getting ammonia readings of 0.50 and nitrIte at 10 and nitrAte at less than 5 (only 9 days into the cycle) even with these 2 plants in so i guess that i aint got "enuff" plants for the available ammonia to be used immediately and am actually getting the benficial bacteria that i need ???


but thankx for the link

 

[craynerd]

Rob, i`ve had my tank about 8 weeks now and is very heavily planted certainly over 50% substrate is covered! I have lots of fast growering stem plants, which help keep algea down and many other broad leaved plants, like java furns and amazon swords.

I added 15 cardinals, 2 platties, 2 mollies and 2 otos. I have NEVER had an ammonia reading above 0 !! and the same with nitrate and nitrite (nitrite sometimes just creeps above 0) ( i fert NO3 at 10ppm and in normally reads around 10ppm!) I have read people on TFF cycling tanks around my volume with less fish and getting much higher readings than that. I`m now slowly (and i mean slowly!) reducing the plants i no longer want and replacing with plants i actually want in the tank

So yea, as you can see it does work and zig along with the link he gave you has explained the reasons!

Related to your tank, i dont think you are heavily planted enough for this to come into play. I`ve heard that if you don`t want to worry about a cycle at all, then u need at least 50% plant coverage of the substrate.

Chris

EDIT: ps. it is also untrue that the tank will never cycle fully with a heavily planted tank. It will but it will just take longer for the filter to colonise with bacteria since the plants are reducing the work.

 

[bobbicus]

hi thankx for the reply - when you read something and huge "?" apeears - it needs clarification!

yep no way near enuff plants for it happen to mine!!

ZIG and CHRIS........I thankyou you both for your information - helped lots - just that i had a huge '?' above me head and thought - hang on a sec what does his mean !!!!!!

thankx again rob