My Doomed Tetra Tank...

[waterdrop]

o yeah, you are a quick study, lol. you got it! Your description of the dual things happening is correct. And in fact it may even be a little better than you might think in that the bacterial colonies, even though smaller and weaker from the plants taking most of their food will still be slowly growing stronger and more robust (there's even some speculation that when bacterial colonies grow very, very slowly they develop in a better way.) Since you are a gardener I can think of no one better to be trying this method for us again - its only been a few times we've been lucky enough to see it (so I hope you'll continue to report here and not just abandon us for planted, lol!)

Your neons probably love the brown water, that's supposed to be a feature of their natural habitats most of the time. My bogwood soaking on the patio for the last year has still never settled down and I wonder how black it would get the tank when I miss a weekly water change session, argh!

~~waterdrop~~

 

[tanksalot]

Double 0's again this morning and evening. (getting boring, isn't it? )

Glad to know my neons will be happy swimming around in something the colour of weak tea...not sure I would . Mind you, what about the plants? Might they suffer from diminished light because of it?

I'll be sticking around here for a while longer, I'm sure. Even if my tank turns out to be cycled, I'll have a wealth of newbie questions to keep pestering you with

And I have plans. My 64 litre has arrived , and, all being well, I'm going to try to set it up heavily planted and transfer the fish soon after, along with the filter from my current tank, which I'll run alongside my new Eheim Aquaball to make use of whatever bacterial colonies it has grown. I guess it's risky but I'm fully prepared for the possibility of lots of water changing and testing, and as I work from home I'm available to catch any problems very quickly. I have a spare filter with which I'll try to keep the small tank ticking over and it can then be my quarantine tank for new arrivals - something I'm very keen to have after reading about what nasties can come from the LFS along with the fish.

So I can see this thread going on for some time...

 

[OldMan47]

What you have is plants consuming all of the ammonia that is being produced. If you run your tank like that for a few months some small bacterial colonies will become established but the health of your fish will rely on plant growth for quite a long time. Sorry Dave. The plants do not introduce the bacteria, if they did you could safely do a cycle with minimal plant growth and not have a problem, but if you get enough plant growth that really doesn't matter.

 

[Dave Spencer]

....Sorry Dave. The plants do not introduce the bacteria, if they did you could safely do a cycle with minimal plant growth and not have a problem, but if you get enough plant growth that really doesn't matter.

Ah, but we can. It has been done many times by many people, myself included. Recommending fast growers in large numbers from the start is just a safety net endorsed by planted tank forums for people using this method for the first time. I have started tanks with Java ferns and mosses and a low plant mass. Shrimp can go in after a day or two without problems. Whilst we shouldn`t underestimate the ability of plants to strip the water column of ammonia, we shouldn`t overestimate it either, which may be what you are saying OM47.

That said, I personally don`t add fish for a good while after planting, as my truck is with algae. I use sky high CO2 from the outset, as part of a plan to combat the stuff, so by default, my tanks are relatively well established before the fish arrive. Most planted tank people seem to add their fish early on, though, even with a low, slow growing plant mass.

Once we develop a “feel” for what we can get away with, we take more liberties with less plant mass and slower growers, more light etc. Aquascaping doesn`t lend itself to initially planting with weeds we do not plan on having in the scape, so as people develop from planted tanks to aquascapes, the boundaries are pushed a little.

I will need to search a little on UKAPS and the Barr Report to support what I say about plants introducing an already established colony in to the tank. However, there is no substitute for using mature filter media and mulm.

All but plants of the worst condition should have a bacteria colony attached. Whilst the main focus of TFF is supplying ammonia to produce a nitrifying colony, little emphasis is put on other nutritional requirements of the colony. Plants, through high O2 levels, export of proteins etc. are a ready made host for these colonies` requirements.

Dave.

 

[waterdrop]

It is my understanding that when an NPT is running with a significant sized soil layer that some combination of processes within the soil is taking place and that among other things this can be a significant supplier of carbon (I would like to clarify better in what form, CO2?) Sorry to introduce a different item in the conversation but since I believe we know the same nitrogen cycle we discuss regarding biofilters plays out in garden soil, its making me think a little about the extent to which the ecosystem in the close surroundings of the plant root systems are playing a role and to what extent that role is similar to the processes in a typical external (to the immediate tank) biofilter.

I realize the above is a separate topic somewhat to what is already being discussed about the overall covering of the plant with bacteria. When I was doing my first fishless cycle I remember speculating that bringing plants in (that had obviously grown in some other at least partial aquatic environment I assumed (although considering today's propogation techniques that becomes a question too)) should introduce at least a small number of autotrophic bacteria simply because these bacteria will populate any aquatic surface to at least a small extent. My further speculation was that if the numbers of free Nitrosomonas and Nitrospira from tap water were as small as we'd expect then a few more riding in on the plants might possibly help a little.

I've since come to feel a little more pessimistic about the extent which any transported "surface contributor" like gravel or decorations transferred from a mature tank to a new one will ever do, and I include plants but with some qualification. The feeling I get from watching some cases here is that although surface contributors should theoretically move us up the initial time curve in a fishless cycle, they never do in a noticible way. Continuing with this thought however, the surface area (with bacterial colonies populating to some unknown extent) of a mass of plants covering 70% of the substrate would be enormous and although it would not be within the augmented oxygen and ammonia flow of a filter box, it still might be a significant factor just in terms of surface bacteria brought in (I'm purposly disregarding the -processing- that plants do with this idea I'm discussing, does that make sense? I'm attempting to pose some questions here.)

I remain in awe of the complexity of systems (considering external plant surfaces, internal plant processing, soil surface area, soil processing etc.) that are placed into play in even a simple example.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[OldMan47]

I don't disagree at all with the large surface area providing a growing space. The statement was made, or maybe it was me reading it wrong, that the plants brought in enough bacteria to significantly accelerate a cycle. As you have said, I have often introduced several objects from mature tanks, including plants, and have never seen much of a bump i my cycle. I do have a NPT style tank that can't seem to even get its nitrate readings above 10 ppm so I have no doubt that plants are doing wonders at removing nitrogen. As you said, there are actions going on in my organic substrate that we seldom associate with freshwater tanks, including absorbing carbon and using nitrates to form the ammonia that the plant can use more readily. Roots are not simple sponge like absorbing organs, they also release chemicals into their immediate surroundings to help promote the chemical changes that make nutrient absorption easier. There is far more to a root than meets the eye.

 

[tanksalot]

Hmmm...lots for a newbie to chew on...wish I'd paid more attention in biology and chemistry classes now

So, is there any point me moving my current filter into the new tank and running it alongside the new filter? Will it actually have anything useful in it yet? I guess it won't hurt, at the very least.

Double 0's at all testings yesterday and today, but nitrates were a shade up, somewhere between 5 and 10ppm. Is that to be expected now I'm not changing any water? I was going to wait until Sunday to do a change, but I think I may crack and do it a day early for cosmetic reasons - that tea colour ain't doing much for me

The plants still show growth - particularly the Cabomba - but I am beginning to see some algae now, a sort of brown fuzzy stuff that if it were on land I would describe as a fine cobweb. Anything I should do about it? It's just a little here and there but I don't fancy it taking over! From the beginning I've had the tank lights on for between 9 and 10 hours a day, so maybe I should have them on less?

 

[waterdrop]

Start by decreasing to 8 hours of light and when OM47 and Dave check in maybe they'll analyze some other aspects and give you further advice. Yes, lighten your tea color, lol.

 

[OldMan47]

I am far from expert at algae control. I have some small amounts in almost any well lit tank. If you don't like the tea color, a water change should help but it is one of the things that carbon is know to be useful in controlling.

 

[tanksalot]

Ok...thanks, WD and OM47. I've reduced the light to 8 hours and we'll see how it goes. I've found it's quite easy to twizzle this cobwebby algae out with a toothbrush, so I've been doing that from time to time. I changed about 30% of my tea water on Saturday and it looks a fair bit better now. Stats are holding steady.

My 64 litre is now up and running. I've planted it with Cabomba, Rotala rotundifolia, Gymnocoronis spilanthoides, Limnophila heterophylla, Eleocharis parvulus, an Anubias, a Crypt, and an Amazon Sword. I hope there will be enough fast growers there to do what I want them to do - the Gymnocoronis seems to have grown a couple of inches in no time at all! Ultimately I'll want to 'scape it into something prettier, but at the moment a jungle of stems is fine by me.

Next hurdle will be transferring the fish. I suspect I'm going to have to take everything out of my little tank or I'll never catch them - these guys are a lot quicker than I am ...

 

[OldMan47]

Personally I just reach in with my hand and grab the hair algae. I carry it across the room to my big community tank where my rainbow cichlids, Herotilapia multispinosa, consider it a real treat.

 

[waterdrop]

A healthy underwater ecosystem is going to have different types of algae crop up from time to time. Don't be fooled that all the pictures of beautiful tanks out there are maintenance free. There's usually quite a bit of fussing with a nice tank to keep it looking clean and crystal.

~~waterdrop~~
edit: Looking at this post the next morning though.. , I realize its a funny thing to try and make a comment like this because its relative in various ways. Sometimes it feels like a tank just breezes along for months harding need anything but the barest normal maintenance. I suppose too that any maintenance skill that becomes habit doesn't -feel- like maintenance, you're hardly aware you're doing it. WD

 

[OldMan47]

Your comment is spot on in my opinion WD. A pretty tank that appears in a picture has been cleaned right before the picture was taken. I post lots of pictures on this forum and elsewhere and the universal truth is that any tank picture takes longer to clean up than it takes to shoot the picture. A fish picture often means choosing to show the tank the way it really is or to clean a tank and come back the next day for the picture. The cleaning often makes the fish go hide because it takes such a large amount of cleaning effort to get the glass looking perfect. I often opt to just take the fish picture and hope for the best but I find that sometimes the algae spots on the glass are just too noticeable to ignore. Any perfect looking landscape, aquascape is a transient thing that shows how well the picture taker is able to clean up the aquascape as much as it shows the reality of his tank. I have only a very few tanks that are not constantly overrun with some form of algae in small amounts. Those are my extreme low light arrangements that simply do not receive enough light for any form of algae to grow. All other environments require cleaning if I don't want to show algae in the tanks. I have tons of pictures here and elsewhere that show some degree of algae because I am just too lazy to constantly clean tanks before taking pictures. If you look closely at most of my pictures, you can see the algae in the picture. Sometimes it is out of focus on the glass in front of the subject and sometimes it is more obvious to a close examination.

 

[tanksalot]

I don't feel so ashamed of my little bit of algae, then. As long as it isn't affecting the water chemistry it doesn't particularly bother me anyway. I'm not about to enter any competitions quite yet

 

[waterdrop]

Yes, I was stunned to find out that most of the hobbyists at the plant conferences were way, way beyond me in the photography dept ( 'course its not hard to be beyond waterdrop who as you can tell is a man of words who has trouble locating the shutter button.) In fact, Takashi Amano, perhaps the most famous of the aquascapers may be more well known as a nature photographer than as an aquascaper, I don't know. Of course, its a wonderful testament to our technological progress that the internet and digital photography have finally come together to allow all our eyes to be involved with the world of aquascapes and botany. Its a natural thing to see happening and a huge improvement over isolation any hobbyist would have felt decades ago. Now if I could just keep straight my depth of field from my field binoculars .

~~clickchallanged~~