Few Q's

[AquaBarb]

Hi everyone,

Cycle...
Just set up a tank to do a fishless cycle and wondered if it was beneficial to have the air stones running while its going through the process. (Not planted yet but will be shortly).

Stocking...
I know bottom dwellers are pretty cool and do a good job cleaning up etc but are they a MUST in a tank. Can a tank thrive without them? (Curious)

 

[Byron]

Air stones will not affect cycling. Thinking ahead, with plants...be careful with airstones. Surface disturbance is more important and effective (re the gas exchange) than bubbles, but you don;t want to be driving off CO2. I personally would never cycle a tank that will have live plants.

A tank can thrive without substrate fish. Substrate fish generally do not do much clean-up, and they contribute more to the bioload for no benefit if you don't want them as fish in their own right. Snails do a much better job, as they eat all organics and contribute nothing (beyond the organics already there) to the bioload. Substrate fish need nutritious foods, and usually these are the sinking foods intended specifically for substrate feeders.

 

[seangee]

The bacteria need oxygen but gas exchange takes place at the surface. So as long as you have some surface disturbance from your filter the air stones won't make any difference.

As for bottom dwellers I am a firm believer in not buying fish to solve problems. But I do try to set up a complete ecosystem. In my South American tank I have corys and a bristlenose because those are fish that I want to keep. I include these in my feeding plan and don't expect them to do any work to keep the tank clean. I assume that I have malaysian trumpet snails in there, but have to confess I have not seen any since my substrate change. I did not set out to eradicate them so I expect I will start seeing them over the next few months. My nano has shrimp, plenty of MTS and a nerite snail. Again that is what I wanted to stock although I must confess I added the MTS to claen up and keep the sand aerated.

In this tank Thai wonder which is almost 3 months old now I intentinally never added any "botttom dwellers" or snails. Technically the sids do spend most of their time in the lower region but they certainly are not foragers or cleaning machines. This tank has been running for almost 3 months and I have never cleaned the substrate or needed to. This tank does, however, have a much higher flow than the other 2 to suit its inhabitants and I am much more careful about not over feeding.

 

[AquaBarb]

Thanks guys,
My spray bar does a good job with the surface disturbance so ill leave my air stones off then. Are air stones really need in this case?

I have cory's and a BN pleco in my other tanks and i did purchased them because i liked them rather than for a clean up crew. I wasnt sure without bottom dwellers that the sand would get aerated and any falling bits of food would get eaten

 

[Byron]

Thanks guys,
My spray bar does a good job with the surface disturbance so ill leave my air stones off then. Are air stones really need in this case?

I have cory's and a BN pleco in my other tanks and i did purchased them because i liked them rather than for a clean up crew. I wasnt sure without bottom dwellers that the sand would get aerated and any falling bits of food would get eaten

It is true that a group of cories that will naturally dig into the substrate to sift the sand through their gills will aerate the upper portion of the substrate, but there is no need for this. I don't see flake foods (for the upper level fish) fall to the substrate, they get eaten too fast! Maybe you are feeding too much if this occurs, I did once many years ago and cut back.

Sand aeration will occur naturally, depending upon the depth, live plants rooted in the substrate, fish digging (minimal in most cases) and snails like the Malaysian Livebearers. I do move the Python over the substrate, stirring up the detritus a bit and this gets pulled up, but I never dig down into the sand in my tanks.

As for air stones...again the important thing is surface disturbance so there is a good exchange of gasses (O and CO2 primarily). Planted tanks can sometimes become CO2 laden during darkness when CO2 is rebuilding, and it is important to keep this in check. I spotted more rapid respiration of my cories in the early morning once, and increased the surface disturbance at the filter spray bar, and I have not seen it again. This obviously was a build-up of CO2 and without surface disturbance it was not being driven off and Oxygen was not entering sufficiently. You don't want to overdo this, as that will remove vital CO2 that the plants will use during photosynthesis, and fish do respire less during darkness (unless they are nocturnal, which cories are) so it is a matter of finding the happy medium.

 

[AquaBarb]

No tbf i have zebra danio's and rainbows so the flakes lucky if it hits the water .

Not sure about bottom dwellers yet for this tank. I do love corys but may have something different this time if i go down that route. MTS may be an option possibly but do these not spread like wild fire?

 

[Byron]

No tbf i have zebra danio's and rainbows so the flakes lucky if it hits the water .

Not sure about bottom dwellers yet for this tank. I do love corys but may have something different this time if i go down that route. MTS may be an option possibly but do these not spread like wild fire?

Any of the small "clean-up" snails will reproduce according to the available food. Even in my tanks where the fish are fed very sparingly, there may be dozens or hundreds. But I recognize that they are at that number solely because of the available organics, and those need taking care of so the snails are still doing what I never could and the fish will benefit.

 

[Back in the fold]

Byron brought up a very good point about bottom dwelling fish. In my mind there is a misconception that Corydoras and other bottom dwellers eat waste and detritus and leftover stale food. This is not true at all. @Byron is absolutely correct when he states that you should want them as fish in their own right and cater to them as you would any other fish.