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Best Way To Start A Planted Tank?

mark4785

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4 Jan 2011
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451
Location
Derbyshire, UK.
I have bought a new aquarium with all the necessary parts with the intention of creating another planted aquarium. In addition to adding plants I'd like to add some sensitive species of fish, possibly a german blue ram as it is my favourite tropical fish.

My question is, if I get started with the planting now, including designing an aquascape, planting, running co2 and dosing ferts, how long will it take for the aquarium to be ABSOLUTELY safe for introducing a german blue ram(s)? I'm so used to the idea of conducting a 2-3 month fishless cycle before adding fish so to add fish without doing this step is causing me to question how and when the aquarium will be viable for fish.

Please bare in mind that the likelihood of me producing an absolutely stunning aquascape with thriving plants is just a fantasy so please don't tell me that "the plants will absorb the ammonia and nitrite". That would only happen on the presumption that I don't come up against problems.

Thanks in advanced to anybody who can provide advise,

Mark.
 
I have had a tank running for over two years and I cannot keep rams, they all die. My brothers have small tanks, barely water changes, lots of water imbalances and they keep them fine. :) with fish I never know. :)

I would say that a tank needs to cycle for at least 30 days.

Add lots of plants, water changes, good filtration and buy healthy fish, you should be ok.


.
 
If you have a tank already cycled you can use some of the mulm from that filter in the new one and on/in the new substrate, or a piece of the filter sponge to instantly cycle the new tank (don't clean it first ;) )

As long as you condition the tap water you're sorted :) Good Plant mass will also help

I Cycled my first tank way back and any new tank is simply started up in this way. Not had any problems yet - though the first time I did it was a bit scarey.
 
Hi all,
Planted tanks are never cycled in the way that a non-planted tank would be, but I like a long stabilisation period so I usually leave mine for a couple of months until plant growth has filled in, some bio-film has developed, the micro-fauna has multiplied and water conditions are stable.
If you have a tank already cycled you can use some of the mulm from that filter in the new one and on/in the new substrate, or a piece of the filter sponge to instantly cycle the new tank
This is always a good idea, even for planted tanks.

I think you've had a similar thread before? <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17590&p=180865>.

Blue Rams are a bit of a problem fish, as others have suggested the quality of stock coming from the Far East is pretty poor, and I would only keep them if you can buy young fish from a breeder, have a look on the BCA forum for a source.

The other problem is that they need warm, good quality, low conductivity water, and again if you don't have access to soft water I wouldn't try and keep them, they aren't a fish that is ever going to be happy in harder water, even if you can lower the pH.

Some other dwarf cichlids are a lot more forgiving of harder water, as an alternative I'd suggest either Bolivian Rams (M. altispinosa) or Apistogramma cacatuoides.

Have a look here: <http://dwarfcichlid.com/Mikrogeophagus_ramirezi.php> and <http://dwarfcichlid.com/Breeding_Blue_Rams.php>, Apistobob's site is well worth a read for any prospective dwarf cichlid keepers, I particularly recommend the Aquarium care pages <http://dwarfcichlid.com/Aquarium_care.php>.

cheers Darrel
 
Darrel it really depends on the breeder, here both discus and rams are raised in medium - hard water, ph ~ 7.5 - 8, gh/kh > 10-15. A local breeder that raises them in local tap water is preferred.

Of course the water quality for these fish species needs to be optimal. Rams are more sensible than discus so they need lots of water changes, quality food and of course a big tank with a lot of space to swim, the lower the fish stock the less stress on this little fellows as they are kinda territorial especially in their breeding periods.
Try and avoid SAE, corys, snails & others that can pick on their eggs, better keep them alone or with a small shoal of tetras.

Mike
 
Is encouraging to hear that there are those successfully keeping the german blue ram's in moderately hard water.
Unfortunately,, for every one person able to do so,,, another dozen fish are killed by other's attempting to keep them in alkaline condition's.
The majority seem to do much better in softer water IME.
 
so please don't tell me that "the plants will absorb the ammonia and nitrite".

I think you're on the wrong forum if your not going to believe this ^^^. If you have an aquarium running at present, i would use some mature media to kick things off. I would also suggest some Purigen to help with Diotom problem you may face.
 
ianho said:
so please don't tell me that "the plants will absorb the ammonia and nitrite".

I think you're on the wrong forum if your not going to believe this ^^^. If you have an aquarium running at present, i would use some mature media to kick things off. I would also suggest some Purigen to help with Diotom problem you may face.

I do believe into that statement, you didn't read what I said in full. I said "please don't tell me that the plants will absorb ammonia and nitrite... as I am likely to run into problems". This means problems with algae, dieing plants, not enough flow, not enough ferts etc. All the things that have the potential to add to ammonia and nitrite through die back.

Sorry if I was too ambiguous; I think you have misconstrued what I said due to taking segments of what I say, rather than what I say as a part of a wider idea.
 
Thank you for all your most valued input.

In summary then, it is probably worth me taking the time to do a conventional fishless cycle if I am to keep a german blue ram? I definitely knew that this is the best option to employ if considering keeping such fish, I just had no idea how effective plants would be at creating a non-toxic environment for such a fish. From what's being said, I understand that a fishless cycle is essential. As a result, i'll treat the tank as though it is non-planted until I get to the end of the fishless nitrogen cycle.

I have to disagree with those stating that the mikrogeophagus ramirezi cannot survive well in hard water. My GH level is 8dH and many have commented that my Ram is one of the most colourful and healthy looking rams on the internet. In the time from being bought from the LFS, his colours have brightened ten-fold, the frayed fins have completely repaired, he has fertilised eggs and, just recently, he has recovered form hole-in-the-head disease, which due to him being around 3 years old, I attribute this problem to old age. I'm trying to get him to live until the age of at least 5 and I will not be using soft water in this endeavour.
 
Hi all,
In summary then, it is probably worth me taking the time to do a conventional fishless cycle if I am to keep a german blue ram? I definitely knew that this is the best option to employ if considering keeping such fish, I just had no idea how effective plants would be at creating a non-toxic environment for such a fish. From what's being said, I understand that a fishless cycle is essential. As a result, i'll treat the tank as though it is non-planted until I get to the end of the fishless nitrogen cycle.
Depends what you mean by a "fishless cycle", if you mean adding liquid ammonia then this doesn't offer any advantage and maybe actively damaging. If you mean not adding any fish until the planting is established? then I would agree with that.
I just had no idea how effective plants would be at creating a non-toxic environment for such a fish
Plants are very effective. When I had the planted trickle filters running in the lab (we did some land-fill leachate work) they had an almost instant effect on water quality.
I have to disagree with those stating that the mikrogeophagus ramirezi cannot survive well in hard water. My GH level is 8dH
Like Mike says provenance of the fish may make a difference, and other factors may come into play as well as the dGH, for example the conductivity of your water would be interesting. The other thing is the owner, if you can offer high quality water, high levels of aeration, a good diet, complex environment etc you can get away with a lot more than if you don't. You have obviously catered to the needs of your Rams very successfully, if you like it is the difference between being a "fish keeper" and a "fish haver".

cheers Darrel
 
Depends what you mean by a "fishless cycle", if you mean adding liquid ammonia then this doesn't offer any advantage and maybe actively damaging. If you mean not adding any fish until the planting is established? then I would agree with that.

Damaging to what? I do my fishless cycles (using pure ammonia) with nothing but substrate and filter.

I indeed mean't "not adding any fish until the plants are established". Are you agreeing that plants alone, owned by a novice planted tank keeper (meaning I will come up against problems like die-back) containing a german blue ram is safe, OR, are you agreeing that a problem-free, perfect, lush planted tank containing a german blue ram is safe? The latter is a myth and won't be a factor with my planted tank since i will have a lot of learning curves to overcome.

Plants are very effective. When I had the planted trickle filters running in the lab (we did some land-fill leachate work) they had an almost instant effect on water quality.

Oh? The replies made to this topic seem to imply that doing a fishless cycle (by this i mean adding pure ammonia to the tank every 24/12 hours until 0 ppm of ammonia and 0 ppm of nitrite are recorded) would be the only way of being able to introduce a ram without harming it. I was actually under the impression that plants are not effective enough at removing ammonia and nitrite baring in mind that my planted tank would probably come up against issues to begin with (as stated in my first post) and bearing in mind I'd like to add a sensitive fish.

The other thing is the owner, if you can offer high quality water, high levels of aeration, a good diet, complex environment etc you can get away with a lot more than if you don't. You have obviously catered to the needs of your Rams very successfully, if you like it is the difference between being a "fish keeper" and a "fish haver".

I do what i consider to be a number of positive things to make the fish happy I guess (please don't think i'm looney!):

1. I've got him to associate a transparent plastic beaker with blood worms, since every friday I fill a plastic beaker up with tank water and swirl the blood worm around in front of the fish. This causes his colours to become very bold and most colourful, which i associate with happiness rather than what an evolutionist might say is "a warning to other animals".

2. Tap the fishes head to encourage tameness.

3. Feed high quality food because this helps a lot with resistance to succumbing to illness through bad water quality or pathogens in the water. I'm not saying everyone should have bad water (i.e. high ammonia or wrong GH) but from observing both my tropicals and cold water fish, it is clear to see that the fish that prefer to eat less nutritious food will respond much quicker to a temporary problem with water quality than the fish choosing to eat the nutrious food.

In response to the 'fish haver' comment, my relatives own a 50 litre aquarium containing 3 goldfish and dechlorinated water. 'Fish havers' only realise what they are doing is bad when they come up against problems when they switch to the less hardy species.

cheers Darrel[/quote]
 
mark4785 said:
Oh? The replies made to this topic seem to imply that doing a fishless cycle (by this i mean adding pure ammonia to the tank every 24/12 hours until 0 ppm of ammonia and 0 ppm of nitrite are recorded) would be the only way of being able to introduce a ram without harming it. ]

How did you come up with that impression?

Add lots of plants, water changes, good filtration and buy healthy fish, you should be ok.

As long as you condition the tap water you're sorted :) Good Plant mass will also help


mark4785 said:
2. Tap the fishes head to encourage tameness.
:wideyed:
 
Quite an interesting read and does throw a question or two to my mind. Pretty much every fish-orientated forum heavily pushes running a fishless cycle with pure ammonia (or BioMature) - I did this with my last tank.

From the comments above, adding ammonia into a planted tank could be detrimental to plants. So going down this road means that you should leave putting any plants in until such time as your tank is cycled. This must mean that you need to fully plant your tank and immediately put fish in one after the other, as once the tank is planted you can no longer feed the bacteria in the filter thus need ammonia from a different source (a fishes bottom).

Or am I reading that getting a tank planted will provide some level of ammonia processing which will allow the introduction of some fish (and kick off building the bacteria colony like this).

Or have I mis-read this completely?!
 
mark4785 said:
ianho said:
so please don't tell me that "the plants will absorb the ammonia and nitrite".

I think you're on the wrong forum if your not going to believe this ^^^. If you have an aquarium running at present, i would use some mature media to kick things off. I would also suggest some Purigen to help with Diotom problem you may face.

I do believe into that statement, you didn't read what I said in full. I said "please don't tell me that the plants will absorb ammonia and nitrite... as I am likely to run into problems". This means problems with algae, dieing plants, not enough flow, not enough ferts etc. All the things that have the potential to add to ammonia and nitrite through die back.

Sorry if I was too ambiguous; I think you have misconstrued what I said due to taking segments of what I say, rather than what I say as a part of a wider idea.

the rest of my post offered a little help though??
 
Hi all,
We've been down this route before including recently in the "other" thread <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=17590&p=180865>, but
Pretty much every fish-orientated forum heavily pushes running a fishless cycle with pure ammonia (or BioMature) - I did this with my last tank.
This is relevant to some degree for an un-planted tank, where all of the biological filtration, the process of converting NH3 - NO2 - NO3, is carried out in the filter media and the light is purely cosmetic, so that you can observe the fish. In this case, as well as ammonia, you need a lot of oxygen and a supply of carbonates. The idea is that the ammonia simulates a large fish load (ammonia continually diffuses out from the fishes gills into the tank water) and by maintaining high levels of ammonia over several weeks you can arrive at a cycled tank ready for a large fish load which you can (in fact need to) introduce in one big "hit".

You know when your tank is cycled by using test kits for NH3 - NO2 - NO3, illustrated in the graph below:
attachment.php


I won't comment on the efficiency of nitrogen test kits, and in this scenario you can only reduce NO3 levels by water changes, there is no easy mechanism for removing NO3 and more complicated methods using de-nitrifying coils, anaerobic plenums etc. have a chequered history.

This is a better method than the "sacrificial fish" method that preceded it, but it isn't really relevant to us, our tanks don't accumulate NO3, quite the opposite the growing plants deplete it. We also have evidence that many plants preferentially take up NH3 and NO2, and that the nitrogen cycle in the planted aquarium is much more complex than in the un-planted tank. A tank with healthily growing plants and water movement for gas exchange has enormous potential for biological filtration.

Will adding ammonia to the planted tank speed the cycling process up? Almost certainly no are tanks are never cycled in the way an un-planted tank would be' <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=14538&p=151055> but the combination of ammonia and light is likely to trigger algal growth as the levels of ammonia fall and become less toxic.

From the comments above, adding ammonia into a planted tank could be detrimental to plants. So going down this road means that you should leave putting any plants in until such time as your tank is cycled. This must mean that you need to fully plant your tank and immediately put fish in one after the other, as once the tank is planted you can no longer feed the bacteria in the filter thus need ammonia from a different source (a fishes bottom).
No, you plant the tank, and then leave it, once the plants are established you add the fish. I still add my fish in sequence over a couple of weeks, but this is probably over cautious. Have a look at my comments on this thread. <http://www.ukaps.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=12800&p=140759>

Oh? The replies made to this topic seem to imply that doing a fishless cycle (by this i mean adding pure ammonia to the tank every 24/12 hours until 0 ppm of ammonia and 0 ppm of nitrite are recorded) would be the only way of being able to introduce a ram without harming it. I was actually under the impression that plants are not effective enough at removing ammonia and nitrite baring in mind that my planted tank would probably come up against issues to begin with (as stated in my first post) and bearing in mind I'd like to add a sensitive fish.
I think I've made my last comment on this thread, I don't know what else I can say other than:

plants are extremely effective at maintaining water quality, and this is true in almost any scenario.

cheers Darrel
 
plants are extremely effective at maintaining water quality, and this is true in almost any scenario.
Definitely, though the exception, in my opinion, is where as a novice you unknowingly find yourself with significant die back and algae, which will definitely be a factor with this new tank to begin with until I learn how much fertiliser and co2 to add.

Hi all,
We've been down this route before including recently in the "other" thread

I wasn't requesting that you regurgitate a text book all over again. I am aware of all ideas that you have mentioned but thank you for the input anyway.
 
spyder said:
What size is the aquarium and what else do you intend to stock?

Well its capacity is 120 litres and as of now I'd like to stock it with two german blue rams, just still undecided on how best to integrate them.

I think the best method would be a pure ammonia fishless cycle as I'm better at doing those than using plants to keep the water quality good!
 
mark4785 said:
plants are extremely effective at maintaining water quality, and this is true in almost any scenario.
Definitely, though the exception, in my opinion, is where as a novice you unknowingly find yourself with significant die back and algae, which will definitely be a factor with this new tank to begin with until I learn how much fertiliser and co2 to add.

Hi all,
We've been down this route before including recently in the "other" thread

I wasn't requesting that you regurgitate a text book all over

Wow, rude.
You certainly have an attitude Mark and its clear in other threads too. People are only offering help and I commend them for that.
"thanks anyway" doesnt cut it.
 
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