Real Plants And Fishless Cycle...

[bogwood]

Is it ok for my real plants to be in the tank during the fishless cycle? Will the high ammonia kill 'em? Thanks

 

[soritan]

I cycled mine with plants in. They suffered through the first part of my cycle -- the part where I wait for my nitrite spike -- but went crazy during the nitrate wait. If I had to do it all over again, I'd wait until I had my nitrite spike, before adding them.

Either way, they were fine.

*Edit: Just be sure and sanitize them before adding them! I didn't, because I had read that the rockwool they come in is a good seeding agent for a cycling tank, and wound up with all sorts of nasty things in my tank, including nematodes, water fleas, hydra, pond snails, and damselfly nymphs.

IMHO, real plants are fine in a fishless cycle.

 

[littleimp]

According to some experts if you have a lot of plants you will never see a cycle dut to the plants sucking up excess nutrients.

I haven't seen a cycle in mine yet, probably helped with the fact I'm using a 50:50 ro water/tap mix. Measuring the water as below.

ph 7.2 (I believe this will drop once co2 takes hold)
nitrate 1-2ppm
nitrite 0
ammonia 0
phosphate 1ish
kh 6deg
gh 7ish

 

[Disco]

A growing plant will actually utilize ammonia aswell as nitrate your levels will not get high enough to hurt them. Dieing/rotting plants will release ammonia into the the water a bacreia break them down.