Plant Cycle?

[Havvie]

Hi all,
 
I am new to the forum and to the hobby, I will be setting up my first tank (a 46 gallon bow front) in a couple weeks and I have a couple decisions to make it seems before I finish all of my planning. I am posting this here after reading some of the archived articles and posts on doing a plant/silent cycle... if this should of been posted elsewhere I understand if it gets moved! 
 
I was really excited and looking forward to having a planted tank, I love plants and it was one of the things that made me want to start keeping fish. I thought I would be able to just do a fishless cycle with the plants in the tank, but after doing some reading on this forum and on internet that doesn't seem to be the case. After reading about plant/silent cycling I am a bit intimidated...I see it is generally not recommended for beginners. I suppose my question is this, do I have any other option other than doing a plant cycle if I want a moderately heavily planted tank? From what I've read it doesn't sound like I can do a fishless cycle then add plants afterwards, as that would defeat the purpose of the cycle? If there is no other option, as a complete newbie to the hobbie should I even consider trying to do a plant cycle?
 
I've just read so much at this point I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. I am prepared to put a lot of time and effort into this tank but I don't want it to be a waste simply because lack of experience/knowledge. Thanks in advance for any replies! 

 

[eaglesaquarium]

You can very easily do a fish less cycle and then add plants afterward.


Option 2: plant the tank. Then add a bit of ammonia, about 1 or 2 ppm ammonia and see what the plants use in 24 hours. Plants will use ammonia. Algae won't really be an issue in that amount of time.

 

[Ch4rlie]

Hello and 

 
Planted tank in cycle has been something of a hot topic in recent past threads.
 
I believe it is generally accepted that having live plant in a tank whilst Fishless cycle is actually beneficial to the process.
 
My first tank i did, added a few live plants, light to moderate planting and I had no real issues with my Fishless cycle, and completed the fishless cycle successfully in just over 4 weeks.
 
Its when you consider doing high tech planted tank, heavily planted, with Co2, fertilisers and high lights etc etc that the cycle process can become a little confusing.
 
As EaglesAquarium already pointed out in his post you can easily do either method, and with a little research about Fishless cycle and how ammonia is process by plants and bacteria will help you to understand a little more.
 
You probably have already read this but I'll add the link just in case anyway 

 
http/www.fishforums.net/index.php?/topic/421488-cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first/

 

[TwoTankAmin]

This is indeed a hot topic. I am a proponent of being able to cycle with plants in a tank up to a point. Crossing that point changes things to where trying to cycle with plants usually means algae in quantities one never deemed possible. It would be so simple if there was a simple formula for deciding when that point was reached/crossed. the problem is that different plants have different feeding preferences and grow at different rates.
 
One of the more important parts of the "silent cycle" is that one does not try to stock a tank 100% all in one go. In this respect it is similar to cycling with fish which requires that one stock the tank gradually over time. In the silent cycle that time frame compresses greatly. Where you may be able to get a heavily planted tank fully cycled in a month or two, a fish in cycle tales many months to reach full stocking.
 
As indicated above, one way to get an idea of where you stand is to plant the tank and then do a test dosing of ammonia. If you are willing to stock in several goes, then you can do this test with less than the 3 ppm of ammonia than you would for a traditional cycle without plants. If you are willing to go very slow on stocking, then 1 ppm would be sufficient in terms of 24 hour processing to do so. If you want to stock more heavily and quickly, then 2 ppm is fine.
 
What is important to understand is how a traditional cycle and a plant in cycle and finally a silent cycle differ. This will help guide ones actions. Firstly, no matter what route you may be going, the goal is to have some combination of bacteria and plants carry the load. While one can have a tank with no plants with the cycling chores being handled 100% by the two types of bacteria, you can never have a planted tank where there is no bacteria. Even though the amount of the cycle being handle by the bacteria is minimal, there will always be some amount of bacteria at work. In this respect it is important yo be aware that plants themselves host the very bacteria we need. So adding plants means one is also adding bacteria.
 
The difference between how plants help with cycling vs bacteria is also important to grasp. Plants take up ammonium and they use it internally. Ammonia leaves a tank is is not then converted to something else but is used inside the plants. Bacterial cycling is a three stage process: ammonia--> nitrite--> nitrate and in establishing a cycled tank one will see all three of these. But when planting heavily one will rarely see either nitrite or nitrate in a tank. Even with a partially planted tank where one may do some amount of additional cycling, the numbers for nitrite and nitrate will be very different than those in a traditional fishless cycle. This is due to the difference in how plants and bacteria deal with the ammonia phase.
 
As I noted, the biggest challenge in cycling with plants is to determine where one stands and what to do. With an obvious heavily planted tank it is easy. But think if you were to being to remove those plants one at a time. At what point would the tank no longer be able to cycle "silently"? As you can see this is the problem. Now expamd tjis to all the types of and numbers of plants one might use and you can see how it can have a lot of gray area between no plants and heavily planted,
 
The one thing I feel very strongly about in all of this is that the best route is to plant first. if you can do a silent cycle this is the way to go. You want to let the plants settle in, root well and then add the fish. But even is a tank with a few plants this is the better way to proceed/ plant before you begin topping off the cycle using ammonia to make the bacteria reproduce. the reason for planting first is simple. Fish can be hard on new plants that are not somewhat established. They can uproot plant that are not anchored (and this is from just daily living and not because they eat plants). Having tried to add more delicate plants to an established tank, I have seen just how hard on things some fish can be.
 
The final thing too realize about cycling with some level of plants in a tank is that the actual number of days during the process during which there may be highish levels of ammonia in a tank are minimal. Even in a fishless cycle using 3 ppm ammonia doses the number of days when ammonia would read 3 ppm or even 2 ppm are not a lot. Any plants present will act to reduce both the levels and the time they are present. So if one gets to a point where algae is starting to appear, one can simply black out the tank for a day or two until the ammonia levels drop. The plants uptake ammonium 24/7. Some may uptake less during night, but they are still taking it in. But then at night many fish are "sleeping" and as a result producing less ammonia.
 
I would like to suggest you have a read at the Tropica site. They are the worlds leading developer and grower of plants for the hobby. Their ABC section is most helpful. http/www.tropica.com/en/home.aspx

 

[spacewolf]

Glad you asked this, I am in the same position as you - trying to weigh up all the different opinions.
 
To save opening a similar one, do you mind if I ride along?
 
Blessings

 

[Havvie]

Thanks for the replies, and thank you TwoTank for all the information, I checked out that site and there is a lot of good info there! Both eaglesaquarium and TwoTankAdmin mention test dosing with ammonia? Does this mean I add the ammonia, test in 24 hours and see how much the plants have used, then up the regular ammonia amounts added while cycling by however much they used? Or am I completely confused? 
 
I am not in any rush to stock my tank, I would just rather be really sure that everything is all good before I put any fish in, less anxiety that way. So if I understand correctly, I should be able to just follow the instructions for a fishless cycle with plants in my tank and it will likely just end up being cycled sooner than if I had no plants? Are there a different numbers for nitrite and nitrate that one should be looking to achieve with a planted tank then if you say it won't show up the same as in one with no plants? One more thing, should I be adding fertilizer or liquid Co2 as soon as they are planted or wait until the tank is cycled? Will those things affect the tests? 
 
Sorry for all of the questions, I've scoured the forums reading everything I can so I'm hoping my questions don't have super obvious answers that I have just missed, if that is the case I'm sorry! 

 

[eaglesaquarium]

Not exactly...  You would NOT want to add more than the standard ammonia dose.  If you plan to do a 'traditional' cycle, then you don't need to worry about the 'test dose'.
 
 
The 'test dose' tells you how much ammonia the plants are using in 24 hours.  And so that tells you how much bioload the tank would be capable of handling just based on the ammonia use of the plants.  And then you could stock a few fish from the beginning and do a sort of 'fish-in' cycle without a lot of hassle, as the fish wouldn't produce so much ammonia that it would become dangerous, because the plants would use it first.
 
 
Maybe an example would help.
 
Let's say you use a 2ppm 'test dose'.  24 hours you test and the results return what appears to be 1ppm or 1.5ppm. 
 
 So, that means that the plants are using between - 0.5ppm-1ppm ammonia in one day.  Give it another 24 hours.  If the level still appears to be about 1ppm, then you can guess its closer to 0.5ppm daily.
 
Now, how does that affect you and your next step?  Well, it means that you can stock your tank (once the ammonia is removed) with a few fish and not have to worry (although you still want to monitor) about ammonia.
 
So, if a stocking of 30 fish would fully stock you, you could stock 1/6 of that, and feel very safe in that level of stocking to not push your plants/bacteria too far in terms of the use of the ammonia to keep it safe.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

I would go a step further. I would prefer to see the tank convert at least 1 of the 2 ppm and not to show not more than about .25 ppm of nitrite. What this means is the plants took up about all that 1 ppm and bacteria that came on the plants took up very little. If the plants took up all 2 ppm and left similar nitrite, you are pretty much good to stock well but not heavily.
 
If the tank handled .5 to anywhere under 1 ppm, I would start more slowly on the stocking. If it is under .5 ppm, I would do a normal fishless according to the article here but would reduce the testing intervals suggested by one day.
 
That is just my opinion of course.