Do I need to cycle a planted tank

[sciencefiction]

Maybe too much ammonia is detrimental to plant's as well as bacteria that we try to cultivate.?

When you add ammonia, plants grow quite fast. I have not experienced damage to plants by adding ammonia. My issue with cycled tanks with plants is mostly due to iron and nitrogen deficiencies.

Yes,I have moved whole tanks of fish from smaller mature tanks to larger "uncycled tanks" with media from established filter ,or sponge filter,or bag of ceramic media that has been in donor tank for a few week's.
Have also moved whole large population's from existing larger tanks to brand new tanks same or larger in size.
Water change may be needed twice a week(or not per volume of water), until bacteria can re-produce but this does not take week's/month's but hour's with borrowed media.

Any videos, pictures over the years of how your fish handled those tanks, with the inhabitants from start to finish? I can show you videos from day one to year five/six with the exact same fish still in the exact same tank...I am not being argumentative but I know what happens to fish subjected to any form of cycle in a tank from my own experience...

My point would be that keeping tanks without plants and substrate is an inherently unsafe method of keeping fish, because you have a single point of failure,

I am not arguing about this either...never have..As you have noticed all my tanks are planted to some extent, whether I used ammonia or not to cycle them...

 

[sciencefiction]

Seemingly I can't put my point across properly, but I'll presented here in a shorter way....My aim at doing what I've been doing is to never subject a single fish to even the minimum of spikes caused by non-established tanks, whether due to plants/microbial activity not doing their job early enough, or filters not cycled to a sufficient extent to handle the current bio-load they've been subjected to at any given time.. or both....Fish and the minimum of unstable conditions is a trigger for big troubles in the following weeks and actually months after you think the hard part, being the cycling, is over...

Increasing the bioload slowly carries several risks: you do not add a sufficiently big enough school for the spiecies of fish to feel secure from the start, causing stress, which leads to diseases. You add too many fish at once causing a temporary water quality issue that would stress not just the new fish but the ones that already went through a cycle not long ago...You add fish too often and introduce contagious pathogens eventually which you end up fighting for several months...

 

[roadmaster]

Not trying to be abrasive either.
Just truthful as best I can.
Video's? Picture's ? I haven't even had a phone of any kind for last ten year's
Computer I am on now is at work, for I don't have one of those either.
Do have 40 yrs in the hobby however with all but the last ten, sans plant's in my tanks .

 

[sciencefiction]

Not trying to be abrasive either.
Just truthful as best I can.
Video's? Picture's ? I haven't even had a phone of any kind for last ten year's
Computer I am on now is at work, for I don't have one of those either.
Do have 40 yrs in the hobby however with all but the last ten, sans plant's in my tanks .

Fair enough. 🙂 I didn't bother buying a modern phone up until half a year ago either and I can't take pictures with a computer but I did have an old camera that did the trick...Having said that, I understand what you're saying. Its a choice of not being a slave to those things..🙂 As a matter of fact, I do not have a television for that reason, not for the last 10 years...I'd rather pick what I want to watch myself, avoiding all the brainwashing programs....which I can achieve on a computer...

I do not count my "years of experience" as being a positive, which are 30 in fact if I count from when I got my first fish...The problem is that on my part years does not equal understanding..but practice, success and failure...I've killed many fish over the years, especially the first few years...

 

[roadmaster]

I killed untold number's as well.🙁

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Maybe too much ammonia is detrimental to plant's as well as bacteria that we try to cultivate.?

When you add ammonia, plants grow quite fast. I have not experienced damage to plants by adding ammonia.

It depends on the plant, a fast growing floater like Eichornia or Pistia can <"assimilate huge amounts of nitrogen from really polluted effluents">.

If you had entirely submerged plants, with lower potential growth rates (ferns, mosses etc), they may be damaged by higher ammonia levels, but I don't know what levels of ammonia we would be talking about. Tom Barr quotes some figures in <"When does ammonia...">

For me one of the major issue with high ammonia loading is that the microbial assemblage that produce differs from the one that the tank will have once ammonia levels fall. There is a more complete discussion in <"Talking with Diana Walstad">.

cheers Darrel

 

[sciencefiction]

If you had entirely submerged plants, with lower potential growth rates (ferns, mosses etc), they may be damaged by higher ammonia levels, but I don't know what levels of ammonia we would be talking about. Tom Barr quotes some figures in <"When does ammonia...">

About 3ppm ammonia in my scenario from the video above...doesn't even cause a diatom outbreak in a tank full of slow growing anubias...with brand new filters and media..

 

[sciencefiction]

For me one of the major issue with high ammonia loading is that the microbial assemblage that produce differs from the one that the tank will have once ammonia levels fall. There is a more complete discussion in <"Talking with Diana Walstad">.

This is theoretical and assuming that the ammonia level reaches high concentration and nitrification does not start whatsoever, for weeks, while one still dumps a regular dose of 3-4ppm ammonia.

When you cycle a tank with ammonia, the actual first dose of ammonia dose gets depleted pretty rapidly, in 3-4 days max...from starting the cycle from scratch...After that it goes down in 2 days, then in 1 day, then in 12hrs or so but the nitrite starts building up and rising. After one has dosed lets say 4 times 3ppm ammonia in a course of a week, you get about roughly speaking the equivalent of 48ppm of nitrites.....But your nitrite test shows only 5ppm(because one doesn't realise that's its limit) so people get stumped at the nitrite stage, waiting for enough bacteria to be established to convert what they think is 5ppm nitrites, which is in fact 50ppm or so nitrites....which is the problem..in cycling with ammonia. You can't have those levels at once in a tank. You need to bring them down to almost 0 and start dosing ammonia regularly, until the ammonia and nitrites get converted at the same time.. but not letting either of them to build up to ridiculous levels.....Plus you can deplete all of the Kh and crash the ph down in a tank dosed with ammonia, stalling the cycle(same happens in tanks with high bioloads, fry tanks, overstocked tanks..)...so one has to do a water change or two to keep things ticking..

 

[sciencefiction]

If relying on water changes to bring down possible ammonia/nitrite spikes in a newly set up tank, a simple maths calculation will show you that a couple of extra weekly water changes, even large, are far from sufficient unless you're 100% sure that what remains will be handled by the plants/filters..or the ammonia remaining is in a non-toxic form but that does not apply to nitrites as they are toxic in any sort of fresh water unless you add salt to it.

...I posted this on another thread a few days ago

To reduce 1ppm ammonia to 0.0X ppm where X is a value below 5 ( the lower you want to bring more toxic substances down, the more water changes it takes)

Number of water changes @

70% - takes 3 water changes
50% - takes 4 water changes
40% - takes 6 water changes
25% - takes 14 water changes
20% - takes 19 water changes
10% - takes 29 water changes


Fish and fish food in a fully stocked tank produce more than 1ppm ammonia daily in any given tank....And fish will be exposed to toxic substances in a non-fully established, even well planted tanks at the start,even if at low levels not high enough to kill them outright..

 

[roadmaster]

Ammonia test in newly established tank will clearly show what level's of ammonia remain after a water change.
Can easily see the result's of water change and ammonia level's in a bucket of water after said water change .(easy for one to test this)
With allowing plant mass to get established (one or two moss ball's don't cut it), one can easily see little in the way of ammonia at all with reasonable stocking/feeding's with week to ten day's between new fishes .
Lot's of plant's,few fishes per volume of water,sparse feeding's every couple day's, and cycling becomes much ado about nothing.
Have set up more than a few class room tanks where small children are not inclined to sit patiently while looking at empty tanks nor are they to be trusted with chemical's like ammonia.
Have used fishes/filter media to establish these tanks (few fish per volume of water),sparse feeding's ,patience .and used the same fishes or their off spring to establish other tank's.
Letting a substantial number of fast growing easy plant's get established for a few week's gives the children something to see/study, along with a few small fishes as the tank matures.
New fishes are quarantined mostly, which limit's the number's to size of quarantine tank.
I see no benefit's to stocking to capacity and do not teach the children to do so without risk's you mention no matter who/where the fishes are sourced from.
More than a couple way's to establish an aquatic environment but patience is key.IMHO

 

[zozo]

If i understood my biology textbook correctly, the bacterias are not solely depended on ammonia alone they have a much larger diet as long as it containes Organic Nitrogene they have a party.. And also not the melting of plants helps in this cycle, it is also the secretion of waste elements from the plant.
The plant lives partialy in symbiosis with the bacteria housing in it's roots and probably it's stem as well. It likely not only gives but also takes from the plant.. I guess this is what this whole working together process is about.

In this case i'm also thinking about what grandma did.. Take a cutting of a plant and a glass of tap water puts the cutting in and places it on the window sil.. That's it, only water and a plant cutting.. Lo and behold the plant keeps on living and even developing roots and it does this for weeks even months to come.. And then you take a microscope to look and than you are completely amazed by what you all can find in the water. This must proof something, the tap water and plant by itself likely containes enough for the initial startup to get something going and keep it going for quite some time with adding only tap water. That's a pretty nice feed of symbiosis in taking from and giving to eachother.

 

[sciencefiction]

If i understood my biology textbook correctly, the bacterias are not solely depended on ammonia alone they have a much larger diet as long as it containes Organic Nitrogene they have a party.

Yes, but you need to provide a nitrogen source in the first place...and one should avoid the nitrogen source being fish...Without a nitrogen source, the plants won't grow either...A new clean setup, with no soil that leaches any ammonia, will be almost void of nitrogen unless the tap water is abundant on it...

Letting a substantial number of fast growing easy plant's get established for a few week's gives the children something to see/study, along with a few small fishes as the tank matures.

I disagree with that. No fishes at all in the first few weeks is the only way to go or you risk the kid's favourite fish die prematurely...Its irresponsible fish keeping knowing that there is a realistic possibility of water quality issues, even if minor...Stocking at once is absolutely not a problem if the tank is cycled with controlled levels of ammonia...A kid can and has done that type of cycling I am sure...Its not a new method...

From all the advise here, I see no easy instructions for a planted tank a kid can follow....The suggestions here is to plant heavily, stock slowly and do some extra water changes...That is very vague and open to interpretations. For some an extra water change is 10% twice weekly instead of 10% weekly where depending on the tank, you may need 70% daily... For others a fully planted tank means a few anubias and a couple of other random plants, and for some a lightly stocked 10G tank means 10-15 small fish.

But for a planted tank to work you've got to take the substrate type into account, the source water, the ferts regime, co2, flow, light, etc.....way too many variables that can go wrong in the first weeks..Planting a tank and introducing fish almost immediately only works for people that already have quite good experience in keeping fish or/and keeping plants. Most people start planted tanks in bare gravel and a few months down the road end up with bare tanks with fish...Its not that easy for a beginner to grow plants....

 

[roadmaster]

No,no fishes at all for first few week's is not the only way to go.
Does take some experience/instruction which I freely offered the children who were eager to learn. I was the custodian at elementary school, but more importantly, their friend.
Oddly enough, small children are easier to teach/learn than older student's/adult's who want to make everything more difficult than need be.
They, nor I, were/are irresponsible just slow,deliberate,patient.
No fishes or student's were harmed.


.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

Without a nitrogen source, the plants won't grow either...A new clean setup, with no soil that leaches any ammonia, will be almost void of nitrogen unless the tap water is abundant on it...

You still feed the plants.

I'm a rain-water user, so I can be pretty sure there isn't much nitrogen in my water change water. I'll use the <"Duckweed Index"> as an indication of when to feed, but other people will use some fraction of EI, it really doesn't matter.

Also because I don't have any fish in the tank I don't worry about the nitrogen source in the fertiliser, and I'll use what ever liquid feed I have to hand (usually what was <"remaindered in Wilko's">). If it has urea (CO(NH2)2), ammonium sulphate ((NH4)2SO4) or ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) as the nitrogen source it doesn't matter. It just needs to keep the plants growing.

If there were fish in the tank then then I would advice using KNO3 as the nitrogen source.

Planting a tank and introducing fish almost immediately only works for people that already have quite good experience in keeping fish or/and keeping plants

That is really the reason for the floating plants, if you don't have floating plants you have all the potential problems of plants that have been produced emersed, non-aquatics sold as aquatics etc.

Its irresponsible fish keeping knowing that there is a realistic possibility of water quality issues, even if minor...Stocking at once is absolutely not a problem if the tank is cycled with controlled levels of ammonia...A kid can and has done that type of cycling I am sure...Its not a new method...

I agree with not exposing our fish to potentially damaging levels of ammonia etc, but we are going to have to differ after that.

My opinion you are much more likely to get water quality issues with ammonia based cycling then you using a planted tank (with plants with the aerial advantage).

Does take some experience/instruction which I freely offered the children who were eager to learn. I was the custodian, but more importantly, their friend.
Oddly enough, small children are easier to teach/learn than older student's/adult's who want to make everything more difficult than need be.

We have (had?) another member <"@Manrock"> who was a primary school teacher <"with tanks in his classroom">.

cheers Darrel

 

[zozo]

Yes, but you need to provide a nitrogen source in the first place...and one should avoid the nitrogen source being fish...Without a nitrogen source, the plants won't grow either...A new clean setup, with no soil that leaches any ammonia, will be almost void of nitrogen unless the tap water is abundant on it...

Tapwater obviously has, mine does, dunno the test can say anything between 5 and 10 ppm hence its just pink to me.... And or the plant itself sarcifises some tissue to make it happen along the way.. I don't know, don't ask to explain.. It's a what you see is what you get.. It might be in such tiny quantities to small for my eyes to see what's going on. It most likely also depends highly on plant sp. mass and grow speed howe much they initialy need.. I regurarly see it people taking home bamboo sticks from the garden centre and just put them in tapwater without having a drop of ferts in the house.. And when i visit weeks later it still stands living on the same darn spot, with roots and very often some foliage as well.. I can only guess with the little bit i know..

 

[roadmaster]

If no possible harm to fishes till bacterial colony is established is the goal/aim,and no plant's present, then can simply place a SMALL, raw ,uncooked, frozen prawn in a mesh bag with rock to hold it down and leave it in the tank for four week's.
At end of four week's,remove the mesh bag and what's left of the prawn, and perform 60% to 70 % water change and can add a few small fishes within reason.(check for ammonia)
Water change before then may be needed if smell becomes offensive, but water change will not slow down the decomposing ammonia producing organic matter.
Just leave filter alone until fifth or sixth week.
Another similar method, would be to feed the tank a small pinch of fish food every other day for four week's, and perform the afore mentioned water change at end of fifth week before adding a few small fish.(check for ammonia)
While these may not allow for stocking a tank to capacity,they will provide food for establishing bacterial colony.

 

[sciencefiction]

then can simply place a SMALL, raw ,uncooked, frozen prawn in a mesh bag with rock to hold it down and leave it in the tank for four week's.

I think the above and feeding fish food is worse than adding ammonia. You're inviting unwanted bacteria to establish to break down the prawn/food which can be pathogenic to fish,,,plus you can't control the levels of ammonia released. Ammonia based cycling is about controlling the level and knowing exactly how much the tank can handle every 12-24hrs after the cycle is over. 3-4ppm ammonia dosing during cycling is sufficient to develop bacteria that can handle a fully stocked tank(or less if you want) and feeding it daily as normal with a weekly water change, as normal, from the moment its cycled..without any subsequent hiccups in water quality...

My opinion you are much more likely to get water quality issues with ammonia based cycling then you using a planted tank (with plants with the aerial advantage).

The truth is you don't get any water quality issues after the initial cycling with ammonia is over. I've tried it and tested it so many times, I am certain those tanks establish just fine and the rest is all speculation on the part of those that don't have experience cycling a tank this way.

If there were fish in the tank then then I would advice using KNO3 as the nitrogen source.

Darrel, with all my respect you use rain water, and your knowledge of plants and chemistry surpasses majority of us here, and especially beginners. You assume that one starts with all the knowledge...just lack of experience when in fact one starts keeping fish with zero knowledge and doesn't even know anything about basics like the nitrogen cycle. In fact some people keep fish for years without understanding basic concepts like that....

Almost everyone I know that has a fish tank...has the average small tank, minimal, if any water changes and not even filters in some scenarios. Recently I spoke to someone who has kept a fish tank for years and their problem is...that fish can't make it a year. and in most cases a few months and they don't know what's going on....for the last few years.....Their only surviving fish is a clown loach...in a 20G tank..which apparently now can't keep its balance and is dying...What's stopping them to learn about fish and plants or any of it? Their issue is that they keep it sparkling clean....and still change the "dirty" filter media every 3 months. I couldn't convince them to stop changing the "dirty" filter media....so I just left it...And additionally, they buy 15-20 fish every so often and restock the tank....People are just not willing to learn for the most part and want everything to magically manage itself...Low tech tank heavily planted tank is a concept of little light, many plants and fishes where everything takes care of itself...which in reality does not happen...

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

You assume that one starts with all the knowledge...just lack of experience when in fact one starts keeping fish with zero knowledge and doesn't even know anything about basics like the nitrogen cycle. In fact some people keep fish for years without understanding basic concepts like that....

Their issue is that they keep it sparkling clean....and still change the "dirty" filter media every 3 months. I couldn't convince them to stop changing the "dirty" filter media....so I just left it...And additionally, they buy 15-20 fish every so often and restock the tank....People are just not willing to learn for the most part and want everything to magically manage itself...

I'm sure your right, people want simple "black and white" answers in a "shades of grey" world.

I first kept fish as a teenager in the 1970's, when "aged water" was supposed to have all sorts of magical properties, and I killed my fish with sickening regularity. The difference was that there wasn't much information then, and you were reliant on a limited range of sources. Things are different now, the problem is sorting out the wheat from the chaff among an information over-load on the WWW.

I think the whole biological filtration concept is quite a difficult one for most people, partially because in popular culture we see microbes as "bad", and cleanliness as good.

The real problem for me is that I'm just not sure that the whole cycling concept is very useful, partially because it promotes the idea of a binary switch between "non-cycled" and "cycled", and partially because it promotes the idea that the paraphernalia of water testing is going to give you consistent and reliable results that will allow you to manage your tank.

That is the beauty of the planted tank and the duckweed index, it gives a very simple set of rules that produces a robust and resilient tank.

cheers Darrel

 

[roadmaster]

Could almost see the class room's of children I helped with protective eye ware,gloves,respirator's, all looking very much like Minion Character's from the movie, and busily testing /dosing daily with highly toxic ammonia.(not likely)
Just needed to find some way's to accomplish the goal's while allowing hands on approach for the children and to keep them interested for more than a day or two.

 

[zozo]

Here the same story, started in the early 1970's 🙂.. Ammonia? Additional ferts? Aquarium textbook didnt talk about it, it contained 0 formulas other than tank dimensoins, volumes and pump capacity.. The lfs had washed riversand and gravels and lavarocks and bogwood, few plants (maybe half of tropicas easy database) all easy and relatively fast growing.. Fish and Eheim stuff. Filterfloss, peat and carbon all should be in there at once.. And than they had some bottles with miracelous elixer to make tapwater fish suitable on the fly. Never used them... Tanks were builded customly. Rocks you had to look for in the field if you wanted..

My first tank was still with a steel rim and orinairy putty.. Leaving a tank like that standing dry for 4 weeks rendered it useless and should be resealed. The rim was painted with red lead (minium) to prevent it from rusting. Hands in the water was a nono.. The air driven vacuumer to remove unsightly debri still available today is a relic from those days, to remove it without spilling precious dirty and stincky water. If a tank didn't smell like an old swamp it was no good...

So yes we cycled all tanks, don't laugh, we cycled them to death, because doing water changes was out of the question.

Diana Wallstad is right, if you leave a desently stocked tank without waterchanges at one point after about 2 months it starts booming.. I had all my tanks full with a very dense carpet of dwarf sag from front to back within weeks. Experienced it a dosen times, without Diana's academic formulas. And no need for adding co2... But it is a ticking timebomb a few months longer into the process bacterial and fungal infections start to appear. There was no way to control it, medicines only made it worse. Only remedy was, strip the tank start again. In average once a year was rather common, very large tanks maybe 2 years and for the very lucky ones maybe even longer. And those very lucky ones only spreaded false hope. Maybe there is a sweetspot to extend the periode to very long with a combination of, volume, stocking, plantmass and filtration. But at one point it will always crash.

For me personaly, having build up aquarium keeping like this, then from all information out there today, it is refreshing the water regularly and keeping excess debri under control, still is the most sensible and valuable of all. All the rest is from a beginners standpoint of view, more overcomplicating and distracting than it is helping.. Speeding things up, promotes haste, haste makes you run into unnecessary problems even sooner. And indeed doing all the water changes slows thing down a bit, that's probably why all the thinkers out there came up with those miraculous fancy pancy substrates which need to "cycle".

Do you need it? NO.. Is it bad?? NO.. Should you do it? Up to you, do whatever you think is best and cycle allong.. 🙂 Doing your waterchanges and keep it all relatively clean is your first proirity in respect to your fish and keep them healthy and happy.

But if you like an advice from old crazy farts.. Learn to swim first before you think of diving into deep waters. 😉