Cycling And Plants

[EGFishKeepers]

I'm doing a fishless cycling of my new 29g FW tank....Do I have to wait for it to complete it's cycle before I add plants?
 
TIA

 

[EllieJellyEllie]

Pretty much you add your plants and wait 2-3 weeks for them to get settled. Once settled dose 2 ppm of ammonia and test in 24 hours. If not at 0, start you cycle as you normally would. Except instead of 3 ppm use 2 ppm

 

[KieranBoyne]

I think that it is ok to add plants during a fishless cycle. I think that because when do you ever hear of a plantless cycle? Cant be that bad for them.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

It really depends on what plants and how many. The more plants one has in a tank the less need there is for bacteria. Plants also have bacteria on them. My preferred methood is to plant the tank first and let the plants settle in for 10-14 days and then do the the 2 ppm test. If most of the ammonia is gone in 24 hours and there is little nitrite, the tank can be stocked gradually once the ammonia and nitrite zero out.
 
The other issue with adding ammonia to some planted tanks is it can encourage algae. One defense re this is lights out times. if one has to add ammonia to encourage bacteria to fill the gap plants leave, its best to do so with the lights off initially. The bacteria dislike light and the algae wants it. The plants can last longer without it than the algae. Because of the plants etc. there should be fewer days of much excess ammonia in getting the tank ready and this should mitigate algae issues.
 
However, there is no hard and fast set of rules for plant types and quantitieds that corresponds to how safe a tank may be in terms of cycling issues. The most effective cycling method with plants is also to use some media or substare from cycled tanks. This combination is really quite effective for getting a new tank "cycled" fast.