New Member Starting A New Tank, Plant Question.

[drsoda007]

Hi,

plz reply quick,

cycling tank, not with pure ammonia but with bacterial stuff in a bottle, it says 2 put 2 capfuls of the stuff in for a week+the original capfuls.

after the first week what do i do???

BTW: in case u haven't relized i m cycling

 

[OldMan47]

DRsoda, it sounds like you are buying nostrums from the LFS. That is not the same thing as cycling. I would be very surprised if at the end of that week you could add the ammonia and expect it to be processed all the way to nitrates in 12 hours. I am very sorry to have to tell you this but at least they got to sell a bottle of the stuff before you found out. I guess that's good for the LFS. When you decide to actually cycle the tank please read the posting at [URL="http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/"]http/www.fishforums.net/content/New-to-t...shless-Cycling/[/URL]
It will tell you how to actually do it. As tempting as it is to believe the story your LFS tells you, there are really no shrtcuts to a real cycle. The best you can do is to do a real cycle as the above posting would tell you but shorten it by adding live bacteria from an established tank's filter media. Anything less is a case of kidding yourself and will cause you to become discouraged by losing fish. The LFS will call this bad luck and somehow make out that its your own fault because you didn't do something that they never told you.
Please don't take this personally, I am only trying to save you some disappointment. We have all made mistakes and believed in fairy tales from the LFS.

 

[tenohfive]

From a practical level, I wish i'd added plants before cycling. Was a pain trying to plant them with a tank full of water.