We just bought a 100g tank and are setting it up. Our local fish guy says he heavily plants his tanks (lined with premade dirt boxes, then gravel) and does not wait to add the fish. He showed us several tanks where he did this and the fish looked ok. This seems to go against everything I am reading about completing a fishless nitrogren cycle. I don't know if this works for him because the tank is large and there are lots of plants to take up ammonium. This is an attractive notion, but we don't want to do the wrong thing for our fish.
planted tank and nitrogen cycle
- Thread starter Schreihofer
- Start date
Welcome to MFK!
The process you're talking about is called a silent cycle. Yes, it works if you have enough plants that are growing vigorously.
I would go ahead and just throw fish in you tank and dose with Seachem Prime and Stability. I've done regular fish cycles, fishless cycles, tetra safe start cycles, and seachem stability cycles, and I love stability.
Even better, if you can get a seeded sponge filter from your LFS, that will usually have enough bacteria on it to have an instant cycle.
The process you're talking about is called a silent cycle. Yes, it works if you have enough plants that are growing vigorously.
I would go ahead and just throw fish in you tank and dose with Seachem Prime and Stability. I've done regular fish cycles, fishless cycles, tetra safe start cycles, and seachem stability cycles, and I love stability.
Even better, if you can get a seeded sponge filter from your LFS, that will usually have enough bacteria on it to have an instant cycle.
http://thegab.org/Plants/setting-up-a-walstad-natural-planted-tank.html
This has a lot of good information on planted tanks. If you have enough plants, with the right amount of light, you can even go so far as to not have any filter, and just have a powerhead or airstones for water circulation. I'm not brave enough to do this sort of thing though. I have filters even on my planted tanks.
This has a lot of good information on planted tanks. If you have enough plants, with the right amount of light, you can even go so far as to not have any filter, and just have a powerhead or airstones for water circulation. I'm not brave enough to do this sort of thing though. I have filters even on my planted tanks.
Laticauda;4641063; said:
Might be able to get away with that with a couple little tetras, but most people on MFK keep entirely too big of fish to run a tank without mech filtration.