I Have Confused Myself Now

[mossonthemoon]

I know the more fishy people here say to do a full fishless cycle with ammonia, etc. This is what I have been doing and appear to be at the end of, more or less. Now I know the more planty people say that if you are going to have a lot of plants it is pointless to do a full fishless cycle since your plants will end up taking up the ammonia for the fish anyway.

Well, I have sort of gone down both paths. I am nearing the end of my fishless cycle, but plants have arrived today (they aren't yet planted), and I expect more within a day or two. I was planning on planting and waiting maybe a week or so to stock the tank (giving the plants a slight head start, though not a big one), but I guess I wasn't thinking it all through, and now I don't really know what to do. If I add them a week or more ahead of time, I imagine I would need to keep dosing with ammonia... But that probably isn't ideal for the plants. (Or is it?)

It feels like this should be a pretty straightforward thing from here, but I am starting to doubt myself. I just want to give the fish *and* plants the best start I can.

I forgot to say that one of the things making me worry about what to do is that I had planned on doing the normal huge water change before the fish, but if I do that, my plants will lose all of their nitrates and come out of the sand, etc.

 

[snazy]

Dosing with ammonia won't do any harm to your plants, ammonia is their food source anyway, not only nitrAtes.
In order for the plants to eat all the ammonia you would dose, you really need to have like most of the tank covered in plants to the point you can't see the tank and they need to be fast growing plants. Otherwise, if plants eat so much ammonia, you can easily dose a bit more than the usual dose while you wait on them to grow if you are worried about the filter bacteria. This way the extra bit will be eaten by the plants and the rest processed by the bacteria in the filter as per usual. Don't forget to do a large water change before adding the fish anyway.

 

[Chad]

+1
Personally I add the plants right away and cycle with them in the tank.

 

[mossonthemoon]

Great, thank you! I figured the ammonia would feed them, but there was a thread somewhere here saying that it isn't good for the plants to be in the fishless cycle. (I will link to it if I manage to find it again.) So I wanted reassurance. I need to do a large water change anyway because I added bicarb when I had a pH crash, but I wasn't sure whether I should do it before or after adding the plants. If I did it before adding the plants, then planted (so far it won't be heavily planted yet, but who knows how many impulse buys will occur ), and the nitrates were very low, everything else being 0, would I still be best off doing a massive water change once more?

 

[snazy]

I cycled my tank with plants, no problem at all. Generally, people say not to cycle with plants because the lights need to be on during cycling if you have plants and the high ammounts of ammonia will cause diatoms and other algae but I got absolutely none. I'd say ammonia and light is not the only reason for algae or even diatoms in tanks.

As for the water change, I'd do it if you have added soda bicarbonate because the plants need to get accustomed to your tap water mineral content and Ph value and the soda has changed that. Ph crash during cycle is common(the ammonia to nitrIte conversion is acidic process and the high ammounts of it can cause the Ph to crash)

 

[mossonthemoon]

Thanks. What I meant really was: If I do the change before the plants, then it is only a week or so before I get fish, and the water tests all check out, should I still do yet another water change? When I say well I mean 0ppm for everything other than nitrates, but with low nitrates at least. Would there still be a point in doing a full water change in that case? Yes, I am probably being lazy but you know... Busy lives, two 180 litre water changes in a row, etc.

 

[snazy]

My opinion is that if you do a large water change and add the plants now, then there's no need in week time. Just make sure ammonia and nitrite are down to 0 after the last dose of ammonia and before you put the fish, and the plants have kept your nitrAtes in the low range up to 10-20ppm.

However, you still need to acclimate your fish before adding them, so you'll pull some water out of the tank and need to top it up with temperature matched dechlorinated water so that could be a 10% water change during adding the fish.

I normally drip acclimate my fish over 45min to and hour and a half if the fish are very sensitive. You need a bucket/container for the fish and a long plastic tube. Then I make several knots on the plastic tube and tighten them up. Then I put one end in the tank deep enough not to run out of water, the other in the bucket with the new fish. Then I do the nasty stuff, I suck up the lower end of the tube in the bucket to start the water drip from the tank into the bucket. If the flow is too much, you can just tighten the knots more so it only allows either drops or very low flow to give the fish more time to adjust. Once the the bucket with fish gets 3 times the ammount of water they came in, I just net them and throw them in the tank. If you don't have a large enough bucket, then keep taking away some of the old water and let it gets slowly filled up with the one from the tank.

During the acclimation, while some water drains from the tank into the bucket, I just top up with dechlorinated, temperature matched tap water at the same time. I normally don't even switch the filters and heater, but keep topping up the tank while the fish are being acclimated.

I bet you you didn't ask for that

Edit: If the room where you are drip acclimating is freezing cold then the water in the bucket can get cooled down if you are acclimating for over an hour. Just shorten the acclimating period and increase the flow from the knotted tube to the bucket so the tank water added keeps it at the same temperature

 

[mossonthemoon]

Thank you! I tend to go slightly over the top with acclimating, but I have never done many fish at once, so it is nice to have it all written out anyway. I tend to forget things when I get stressed. And I didn't do it exactly this way, so it is good to see other ways! ...that are probably better.

Oh and unfortunately the only room that was particularly suitable for the tank *is* freezing cold, so that will be fun. In fact it is so cold that I suspect the tank will work as a heat source. Hmm...

 

[snazy]

Thank you! I tend to go slightly over the top with acclimating, but I have never done many fish at once, so it is nice to have it all written out anyway. I tend to forget things when I get stressed. And I didn't do it exactly this way, so it is good to see other ways! ...that are probably better.

Oh and unfortunately the only room that was particularly suitable for the tank *is* freezing cold, so that will be fun. In fact it is so cold that I suspect the tank will work as a heat source. Hmm...

You can add a heater to the container with the fish if you have a spare one, just don't use it to heat up the room or the coffee

 

[mossonthemoon]

That has given me ideas! My tea goes cold in there before I have even started drinking it. That's a good idea. I do have a spare heater or two.

 

[snazy]

Forgot, I also get a towel and throw it over the bucket to keep them in the dark, when the towel gets soaked I am done acclimating
If you run out of space, you can pop a few fish in the tea too