Planted Tank = No Cycling!!??

[coachfraley]

I have a 12G planted Nanocube which has been up and going for about 18 days now. The tank has been stocked with fish & plants the entire time. I went 2 weeks with 1 D. Gourami and 3 platys. Then I added 1 more platy, 1 cory and 4 black neons (basically bringing my tank to its maximum capacity)

So far I have had 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites. Last night when I tested the tank, I got my first nitrate reading of 5ppm.

I did some research and I came across a planted tank site that claimed that planted tanks do not need to go through the traditional cycling process because the plants eat up all the ammonia and nitrites.

With all of the trouble people seem to have with cycling, I am surprised that more people do not talk about this as an alternative to the traditional cycling process. Personally, it seems a lot easier and more fun to have a tank with happy fish and plants practically immediately, than to sit around for 2 weeks with a tank full of pure ammonia. What do you think?

I do have one question to go along with my rant: If all of my levels continue to look good, but my nitrates start to climb over the next couple of days, would it be advisable to clean one section of my filter media, or should I hold off on cleaning to preserve bacteria?

I would appreciate any answers or comments. Peace

[Fishguy2727]

The plants themselves are your intake for ammonia, not the bacteria. If you are getting nitrates though that means that there is some bacteria. However, cleaning the filter will not help either, not that you shouldn't clean your filter. Filter debris causes nitrates on a long term scale. If the nirates continue to rise you will need to add more plants or do water changes. Water changes should be done anyways, but smaller and not necessarily as frequent since it is a planted tank.

[RobbieG]

Congratulations on your good luck so far, but keep an eye on the water. (Nitrates that aren't used by the plants need to be removed removed by water changes)

There are a lot of products and methods that people say speed up or eliminate the need to go throught the time and effort to cycle a tank. Most of us have probably tried cheating one way or another over the years - I've had success just using old filters and gravel etc.

The reason most of us don't cheat anymore is that proper cycling pretty much ALWAYS works and NEVER harms our fish.

If you try using plants or old filter media or any of the hundred other cheats with fish in the tank and it doesn't work it will ALWAYS at least cripple your fish and usually kill them.

Until a few years agao, I had never even heard of fishless cycling. My ignorance caused a lot of fish to die horribly painful deaths. I'm not some tree hugging, granola munching, vegan or anything - but how could I put a pet that I care about through that kind of torture just so I didn't have to wait a couple of weeks to have fish in my tank.

[xoolooxunny]

I started my 75g FW with a bunch of plants and 8 baby giant danios. Never got ammonia readings, but started adding more fish when I was getting nitrates. It was a 2 week process.

[Chrona]

Planted tanks do not need to be cycled provided the plants have a good environment to grow in, and there are a lot of plants compared to fish. If you throw in a few stems of plants in a low light tank, along with a bunch of fish, you will get ammonia/nitrite spikes regardless.

[coachfraley]

Thanks for all of the responses. I did a 10 % water change last night and the nitrates are still reading 5ppm today. I added a bunch of anacharis today and hopefully that help to keep it level.

Thanks again

[Chrona]

5 ppm nitrates is perfect. If nitrates drop to 0, then you don't know if the plants are getting enough of it.

And in the future, try for large water changes, even if they are more spaced out. 10% water changes really does not do much, if anything. For instance, 100 ppm nitrates would be diluted to 90 ppm nitrates.

[Lady Hobbs]

"With all of the trouble people seem to have with cycling, I am surprised that more people do not talk about this as an alternative to the traditional cycling process."

I don't think it's that they have trouble with cycling is that they don't know about cycling. Many people buy a tank, buy fish the same night, fill the tank with water and in 5 days their fish are dying. So.....they go buy more fish and dance this dance for several weeks before they go online and start doing some research as that what in heck is going on.

Many also don't want plants because they will be having cichlids in the tank, have been the planted bit before and had too much trouble with algae and dying plants or don't want to go into the extra expense of lights, plants, fertilizers.

I have a planted tank but it is not heavily planted so therefore I cycled in addition to the plants. But you're right, a heavily planted tank does not need it and you started out slow, just as you should.

Hope you love your new setup and everything goes great for you.

[Chrona]

Good point Hobbs


It should also be noted that nanocubes have pretty good lighting (24 watts of compact fluorescent for the basic model). You would be hard-pressed to get the same results in a 10g tank with the standard 15 watt regular fluorescent.

[wijnands]

Funny.

Previous setups before I read material here I setup tanks but planting them first, letting 'm sit for about 10 days and then putting fish in. Only once lost a fish that way. This time with a properly setup tank I lost a fish but not immediately but after a month. Weird. However, the process must have done something good because my beeshrimp are alive and breeding while it's a relatively fresh tank.

[Lady Hobbs]

Breeding shows you have maintained a very nice environment for them. Congrats. What about algae? Have you had any problem with that yet? I just wonder when that will hit me. Probably when I add the ferts.

[wijnands]

No, in fact, there's so little algae that the shrimps and the snails are competing fiercely for every patch.

[Lady Hobbs]

Good to hear that. I know I need ferts but almost afraid to add any. My plants are just in the gravel and I know are in need but not sure what to use. I have no idea on plant spikes how much is too much and I don't have great lighting, either, so have been holding off on ferts for now. Plants are nice and green but doing nothing much at growing.

[wijnands]

In my tank light seems to be the limiting factor. Obvious because it's in a less sunny spot now than it was in my appartment. I could clearly see when they rooted well, suddenly they reach the tetra substrate I put at the bottom and immediately there's loads more growth.

I have some spots of algae on the front window now which is attracting the snails.

[Chrona]

Some Flourish tabs will help to richen the gravel in terms of trace elements and iron, Hobbs. You don't have to worry about nitrate, phosphate and potassium with low lighting and a decent number of fish in the tank.