Plants In A Fishless Cycle?

[c-dub]

Can you put live plants in a fishless cycle when setting up a new tank? Will that kill them or can they handle the fact that there bacteria etc. isn't right yet?

 

[fish_tank0311]

Most plants will be fine. As long as their not the "discus" of plants, they should be able to tolerate a yet cycled and balanced tank.

 

[Truck]

All plants are fine in elevated levels of ammonia and nitrite, they use them asa source of nitrogen, however if you add plants now they'll be ridden with algae at this stage, wait until your cycle has finished, that way when the lights are on the ammonia wont encourage algal growth.

 

[c-dub]

Right thanks.

 

[nork]

I'm on day 19 of my fishless cycle that appears to have been completed for a few days now, and I've had 2 anubias from day 1 and then added a two more about a week ago. All four were the 4" plants from PetSmart.

They've all been doing fine. I haven't noticied any significant growth on any of them, but the older anubias seem to be "stiffer" than the newer ones, and one of them has a root chute that's taking off like crazy.

I haven't noticed any algae problems in my tank except for on one of my plants itself. At the base of the plant (one of the original anubias), there's a small spiderweb looking gunk. It's barely noticeable, and I'm assuming this is algae, but my water is still crystal clear, the glass, substrate, rocks, heaters, pump, etc appear to be squeeky clean.

My point in my rambling? I was advised that most plants do very well during the cycling period. All four of mine have, at this point.

 

[waterdrop]

Whether or not you get algae and how much varies all over the place among individuals. Like fishless cycling, its just wildly variable. People can be unlucky and just get a ton of algae spores in their water. They're microscopic, just like bacteria, so you can't see them of course. Whether the conditions for the spores to take hold vary wildly too and are not obvious. We all know the basic triggers for the spores to take off are light and ammonia, but there are bound to be other factors too, once the algae cells get going and those can be complicated and unexpected.

I've grown to think that having plants or not during a fishless cycle can come down to the family situation and what people really want to do. If you have kids to try and entertain a bit or a spouse complaining about the plain tank then there's not much harm in doing some plants. You can even keep to the less expensive ones in case you just need to toss them later. I do feel though that if you are thinking of a serious, heavily planted tank that the fishless cycle is not the time, it complicates the feedback of the readings too much and can actually compete with the bacteria for the ammonia. Serious planted tanks can be cycled in different ways, as seen over in the plnated section. Anubias like nork talks about are a good choice!

~~waterdrop~~