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Old 17-08-2003, 11:22 PM
 
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Default Include plants when cycling tank?

"rapdor" wrote in message ...
When starting up a new tank using the fishless cycle method, should I
include aquatic plants or just the gravel and driftwood?


Why would you need fishless cycling in the first place?
Plants assimilate NH4. The first product of fish waste. The end
product of the bacterial cycle is NO3, also used by plants. So if you
add plants from the start, there is no "cycle" since you are growing
plants, bacteria on the other hand will simply adjust to whatever is
left over. Your NH4 dosing in th start will produce a large colony,
but this large colony will die back to a nominal level after wards.

As far as adding a good colony on bacteria, what the heck wait 2-3
weeks? This is foolish. Simply vacuum an established tank/(friend's,
one of yours, a LFS's, etc) and add the mulm/dirt/detritus tot he
bottom half of the gravel/a little bit into the filter and there you
are, a fully cycled tank with the bacteria and a little organic
material.

That's all that's missing from an established tank, the bacteria and
organic material. It's plain silly to wait and spend time messing with
this fishless cycling mumbo. It takes less time to do a 50% weekly
water change in th beginning to prevent any build up. A weekly 50%
water change is cheaper and certainly simpler as well.

Why folks get this fishless cycling hair is way beyond me. LFS's and
folks that kept fish long before ggest and we added the fish that day
or the next.

I've never measured any NH4 with a Lamott kit on any plant tank. Also
plant roots are loaded with bacteria and will help cycle a tank
quickly.

If you live far away from a LFS/don't have any established tanks
already/don't have any fish tank friends around etc, then you might
consider this method, but I cannot think of many other situations
where it would be useful for non planted tank. For a planted tank,
there is no use for fishless cycling at all.

Regards,
Tom Barr