added live plants to a fishless cycling tank

[megan1194]

Hi,

I have a ten gallon tank that I'm currently fishless cycling. I've had the tank for about five weeks and it's still not cycled. I'm new to this and I'm really confused. Yesterday, I added live plants to my aquarium cause I heard it would help the cycle. Before I put the plants in there I did a partial water change to bring down the ammonia level. I also had nitrates and nitrites before I put plants in. After I put the live plants in, all my nitrites and nitrates were gone and now I have no idea where my tank is in the cycle or what to do now. I do still have like maybe 1 or 2 ppm of ammonia. I just don't know what to do now. I've never had a planted tank before.

 

[mcordelia]

Hi! welcome to the forum!

Which method of fishless cycling were you using before you added the plants? Most folks here generally go by this method (https://www.fishforums.net/threads/cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first.421488/) but there are some other ones too so I wanted to see which one you were following.

Secondly, how many and what types of plants did you add? I'm not surprised that your nitrites and nitrates disappeared, especially if they are fast growing plants. If you have enough plants to do a "silent cycle", you can proceed in that direction (your ammonia should be gone in the next 24h if that is the case, I think), but if not then your best bet may be to either add more plants or proceed with a modified fishless cycle.

The key with live plants (as you know yourself) is to not have such high ammonia levels that it causes harm to the plants themselves. I'm not sure what level of ammonia your plants can tolerate (depends on the plant and your water pH), but at the very least when adding ammonia you should split the dose over the course of a day-two (dosing small amounts multiple times a day) so as to not spike the ammonia and cause damage to the plants. It may be difficult to find an equilibrium for that, since the plants are likely to prefer to use the ammonia as fertilizer leaving less available for the BB, so maybe giving the plants a week or three to establish and then proceeding with adding small numbers of fish may be indicated as your next step.

I'll tag @essjay here as well, since she's the cycling queen

 

[megan1194]

Hi! welcome to the forum!

Which method of fishless cycling were you using before you added the plants? Most folks here generally go by this method (https://www.fishforums.net/threads/cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first.421488/) but there are some other ones too so I wanted to see which one you were following.

Secondly, how many and what types of plants did you add? I'm not surprised that your nitrites and nitrates disappeared, especially if they are fast growing plants. If you have enough plants to do a "silent cycle", you can proceed in that direction (your ammonia should be gone in the next 24h if that is the case, I think), but if not then your best bet may be to either add more plants or proceed with a modified fishless cycle.

The key with live plants (as you know yourself) is to not have such high ammonia levels that it causes harm to the plants themselves. I'm not sure what level of ammonia your plants can tolerate (depends on the plant and your water pH), but at the very least when adding ammonia you should split the dose over the course of a day-two (dosing small amounts multiple times a day) so as to not spike the ammonia and cause damage to the plants. It may be difficult to find an equilibrium for that, since the plants are likely to prefer to use the ammonia as fertilizer leaving less available for the BB, so maybe giving the plants a week or three to establish and then proceeding with adding small numbers of fish may be indicated as your next step.

I'll tag @essjay here as well, since she's the cycling queen

hi! thank you so much for responding! the cycle that you've posted was the one i was using. my ammonia levels looks to be at maybe 2ppm right now (i just tested it), my nitrites and nitrates are 0. my pH is always at 7.4. i have four anubias plants in my tank and an amazon sword and my temp is at 80 degrees. i have a ten gallon.

 

[megan1194]

Hi! welcome to the forum!

Which method of fishless cycling were you using before you added the plants? Most folks here generally go by this method (https://www.fishforums.net/threads/cycling-your-new-fresh-water-tank-read-this-first.421488/) but there are some other ones too so I wanted to see which one you were following.

Secondly, how many and what types of plants did you add? I'm not surprised that your nitrites and nitrates disappeared, especially if they are fast growing plants. If you have enough plants to do a "silent cycle", you can proceed in that direction (your ammonia should be gone in the next 24h if that is the case, I think), but if not then your best bet may be to either add more plants or proceed with a modified fishless cycle.

The key with live plants (as you know yourself) is to not have such high ammonia levels that it causes harm to the plants themselves. I'm not sure what level of ammonia your plants can tolerate (depends on the plant and your water pH), but at the very least when adding ammonia you should split the dose over the course of a day-two (dosing small amounts multiple times a day) so as to not spike the ammonia and cause damage to the plants. It may be difficult to find an equilibrium for that, since the plants are likely to prefer to use the ammonia as fertilizer leaving less available for the BB, so maybe giving the plants a week or three to establish and then proceeding with adding small numbers of fish may be indicated as your next step.

I'll tag @essjay here as well, since she's the cycling queen

i'd also like to mention that i haven't added ammonia since last thursday cause the ammonia i have won't go away. i also do have nitrifying bacteria that i put in there.

 

[mcordelia]

I don't think that anubias and amazon sword plant are going to be fast-growing enough to enable you to do a silent cycle. you would need something like wisteria or hornwort or frogbit etc. If you do go the silent cycle route (decide to get a fast growing floating plant), know that you don't have to keep the floating plants forever, just a couple of months so that the BB also get established. You can then slowly switch the floating plants out for other plants in your tank.

If you happen to be currently working from home due to covid, then one way to continue the fishless cycle with the plants in there is to split your next dose of ammonia into 8-10 pieces (if it's too small of a quantity then dilute it into 100ml of water or so and split that into 8-10 bits) and add some every few hours over the course of two days, checking to keep the overall dose low enough that it won't harm plants (Again, the problem with my advice here is I don't know what level of ammonia will harm plants).

To your other question as to why you started seeing nitrites and nitrates but the overall ammonia has not decreased yet, it does sound like you are somewhat on track with your cycle, since if I recall correctly the second dose of ammonia goes in something around day 21-27 in general (based on your numbers, not the time), so that would put you at adding the second dose around 5 weeks or so, which is what it sounds like you have done.

I could also be way off base here and don't want to lead you terribly astray with my musings, so it's probably best to wait to see if essjay is still online in her timezone and see if she has any thoughts.

 

[megan1194]

to be fair, i didn't know i needed an ammonia source until my second week with the tank and honestly, it took a while to get it so since probably week 2 or 3. i was using ammolock which i've learned does nothing until you have ammonia in your tank already. since learning that and getting actual ammonia, i've had non stop ammonia in my tank. barely ever had to add more but didn't get any nitrites or nitrates until week 4 or 5. i am able to get more plants. you said wisteria are floating plants as in i don't have to put them in substrate?

 

[megan1194]

i actually do want a lot of plants because of the type of fish i want so i'm glad you told me that the ones i have don't grow very fast.

 

[mcordelia]

I think anubias and amazon swords are really good plants to have, from what I understand they are very hardy and great for beginners! For the purposes of tank cycling you want plants that take up nutrients from the water column and convert them quickly to leaves, so that's why the plants mentioned above are especially good for silent cycles. There are a few others too, but I forget their names...

From what I understand, wisteria can either be planted or floating. It forms "rootlets" when planted, but I think it still predominantly takes up nutrients from the water. I'd recommend doing a quick search on the forums of those plants since I'm not a plant expert by any stretch of the imagination (starting my first planted tank this week), but that's what I've picked up from reading other peoples stuff on here.

 

[mcordelia]

correction - it looks like amazon sword IS a fast growing plant, and will at least take care of the ammonia produced by a betta fish: https://www.fishforums.net/threads/help-with-cycling-my-tank-for-the-first-time.465828/#post-3985964

 

[mcordelia]

according to essjay, elodea and water sprite are also great plants for silent cycles: https://www.fishforums.net/threads/should-my-nitrate-be-higher.465304/page-2#post-3981611

 

[megan1194]

yeah anubias plants require little to no maintenance besides trimming when they get big. the amazon sword was kinda an accident lol. i thought it was also anubias and didn't read the package but i kept it but yeah i'll definitely be getting some faster growing plants cause i'd like to try a silent cycle instead.

 

[mcordelia]

I'm basically spamming your post right now but after searching the forums what I learned was also this:

- to do a silent cycle plant ~30% of your tank (I think this is by volume, but I'm not sure...?) maybe it's bottom surface area instead.
- it seems like any floating plant will do, since they are apparently all fast growers. The other recommended plants are "fast growing stem plants". I think Anacharis may be one of those.
- after you plant your plants, you will need to be using fertilizer to get them established. I think the general dosing is 1x/week, and you can probably decrease that after you add your fish. Seachem Flourish complete seems to be recommended, seachem flourish excel seems to contain compounds that may be toxic to fish.
- Give the plants a few weeks to establish. You know they are established when they start growing and none of them are melting or rotting. From what I've learned about aquarium plants, is that they sometimes decide to just randomly die on you anyway, so that's probably why the idea is to have a lot of different kinds of plants, so if one plant decides it's not happy all of a sudden, then you have the other plants as "backup"
- Since you're going for a planted tank, there's no harm in getting all your plants now (both the fast and slow growing ones), but keep in mind that your lighting may change if you decide to take the floating plants out of the tank down the road.
- for rooted plants that go in the substrate, it is advisable to use root tabs. Be aware that some (cheap?) root tabs release ammonia into the water column. A lot of people seem to like seachem flourish root tabs.
- when you add your fish, add only a few at a time and monitor for ammonia/nitrites/nitrates. If you see an ammonia spike, do daily 50% water changes until the ammonia spike is gone and you can also use a cycle starter like tetra safe start at that point if needed. If you are planning on schooling fish, add the entire school at once to prevent stress to the fish since they don't do well alone.

I hope this helps!

 

[megan1194]

oh no. don't be sorry for spamming my feed. this is the most helpful feedback i've gotten since getting my tank so i really appreciate it. i plan on getting pea puffers. i haven't decided on how many (i can only have three if i do species only) so i might start with only one cause i heard they will fight each other if they can't have their own space. that's why i need a lot of plants so they can hide

 

[mcordelia]

ooh, pea puffers would be so cool!!! I believe @eatyourpeas has a pea puffer tank, maybe she can give you some advice as well

 

[Essjay]

Fishless cycles can take as long as 7 week or more. Nitrites should not appear until enough ammonia eating bacteria have grown to make it, and nitrate should not increase above tap level until some nitrite eaters have grown.


Reading through your posts, if I have it right, you've had the tank 5 weeks but you didn't add any ammonia until about 2 weeks ago. So you are still probably at the stage of waiting for the ammonia eaters to grow.
What brand of bacteria did you add? Some are better than others.
Ammo lock isn't needed during fishless cycling as there are no fish to come to harm.


The idea behind silent cycling is that plants use ammonia as fertiliser. if there are enough of them, they'll take up all the ammonia made by a sensibly stocked tank of fish - and they don't turn it into nitrite or nitrate. But there needs to be a lot of fast growing plants, the odd one or two slow growing plants aren't enough. Anubias are slow growers.
As mcordelia says, floating plants are particularly good because they can can get carbon dioxide from the air and they are close to the lights. Everything from Salvinia, though Amazon frogbit and water lettuce to water sprite. Stem plants like anacharis (aka elodea) and hornwort can also be used as floating plants.
Once the tank is planted, take a photo. You can use this to see how much your plants are growing. You need to wait until the plants are showing signs of active growth - the last thing you need is to get fish then the plants just die. Once you know the plants are growing well, fish can be added. With 10 gallons, it's not really practical to add them a few at a time, the recommendation with bigger tanks. I would probably get all the puffers at once - but make sure there's lots of nice new growth on the plants before you do.
You may find there's some nitrite in the water when the tank is ready for fish - if there is, do a water change before going fish shopping.
Once you have fish, test for ammonia and nitrite every day till yuo are sure they are staying at zero. If either do show up, you just need to do a water change.

Floating plants and those stem plants which feed through their leaves need a liquid fertiliser. The two best are Seachem Floruish Comprehensive Supplement and Brightwell FlorinMulti. For the sword plant, a root tab - mcordelia has already mentioned that Seachem Flourish root tabs are one of the best.