Plants And The Cycle

[Lady J]

Does adding plants early in the cycle reduce the time it takes for the cycle to complete?

 

[hensonc4098]

Not technically... But yes

What happens in the cycle is your bacteria in the filter are building up in quantity. They are breaking the ammonia down into nitrite, then into nitrate.

When you add plants, they absorb some of the nitrogen so that it appears to be gone. This is called a silent cycle. If the plants are removed, the filter will need to build up the bacteria again and you will be put into a half-cycled situation, where the filter has not built up enough bacteria to cope with the amount of waste produced by the fish on its own.

If you are planning on planting the tank fairly heavily and keeping it planted, then go for it. However in essence, the plants do not "speed up" the cycle, they just substitute for it.

 

[Lady J]

Thank you so much for your response. I understand this much better now. A few days ago my nitrites were we registering at 50. Yesterday I added quite a bit more ammonia and last night the ammonia was 1.0 and the nitrites were .25 and nitrates were 5.0 It' cycling fast and it does have a lot of plants. It sounds as if the cycle may be done in 1 more week.