Fishless Cycling A Bare Tank

[Bobtastic]

Hi all

I was wondering if there would be any benefit to doing a fishless cycle on a completely barron tank with the idea to aquascape once the cycle is complete, as you do the major water change (in this case 100%)?

I'm wanting to setup a aquascaped planted tank, and do a fishless cycle to get it going but was wondering if adding ammonia to a planted tank would cause problems or if it would cycle at all (would the plants process the ammonia b4 it got into the filter)?!

Theories/opinions?

 

[backtotropical]

Hi Bobtastic,

Fishless cycling can be a major trigger for algae, and your suggestion would make it easier to clean. I've heard many people moaning about having to clean all their ornaments etc after the cycle due to algae issues.

That said, you may want to have a look at this thread

http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=287909

Some of the plant guys advise a fishless cycle isn't necessary if the tank is heavily planted. I'll let you make up your own mind on that one.

Cheers

BTT

 

[Bobtastic]

Thanks BTT, I was reading through that thread the other day. Going on the theory that the plants use up the ammonia if I do a FlC and then plant the tank the plants will use up the little ammonia that will be produced by the newly added fishies and there will be none (very little) left over for the filter bacteria. Assuming that would be the case the bacteria would then die off, or be reduced to a lower level and would have to be breed back up with the addition of more fishies. Thus making the FlC redundant.... Does that make any sense?

 

[Craster]

The big advantage to cycling before you plant up would be that you could cycle without the lights on, meaning you won't have the large algae issues common with cycling.

 

[Rooster]

This is the ONLY way to do in my opinion

 

[waterdrop]

I personally -like- the idea of doing a bare tank fishless cycle and then, if you're going to do all these things, introducing the substrate, plants and fish all at once and then working with them.

Usually our planted guys feel this is unnecessary because they feel you can introduce the substrate and large numbers of plants, providing an environment for a few starter fish that will require very few water changes to handle its fish-in cycling status and then you can just let the filter take its own time getting up to cycled status. I agree that this should work just fine and allows you not to wait to have both your plants and fish.

However, the problem I have with this is that I worry that a beginner might not have the confidence to do this until they were more confident they could correctly keep the planted tank system -running- for that first month or two. The established planted guys have confidence in their ability to get a full compliment of plants up and growing. What I worry about as a beginner is having a whole bunch of those plants start to die on me and find that they are adding to the ammonia in the fish-in cycle rather than subtracting from it. So I end up feeling this approach is valid but would work better after a person had successfully had a couple of planted tanks prior. Its probably just me being too conservative... but that's my current opinion.

~~waterdrop~~