Setting Up - When Do The Plants Come In ?

[JohnB]

Hi

Planning my tanks and am reading like mad, I understand the fishless cycle etc, now i hope this is not a stupid question, were do the plants come in

Do i setup plant and then run the cycle or run the cycle and then add the plants ?

Regards

John B

 

[Thomas 2507]

I would say add the plants after, but don't take my word for it.

 

[jdyer]

Don't know a huge amount about fishless cycling (doing the same to my first tanks now), but I was told to add the plants early on, as they'll also remove ammonia and nitrites from the water, helping the process.
I also found that my tank nitrate level was at 20, whereas my tap water was 40, so they help keep that down as well.

 

[pat3612]

I dont think it really matters I added all mine before cycling that way once your cycled just add fish.

 

[Shrimper]

I added mine after cycling in my first tank and before in my current tank (although i didn't do a fishless cycle on the current one, I cloned the filter from the other tank). I don't think it makes much difference to the cycle although i'm not an expert on cycling.

It was a lot easier planting an empty tank than one with water.

 

[vinylman]

IMO the best thing to do when you set up a tank is to buy a lot of cheap, bunched plants and put them in straight away. As the tank matures, start replacing them with better quality ones, including potted. If you do it this way round, you'll find out which plants do well in your tank early on without making expensive mistakes.

 

[waterdrop]

I don't think it matters either. One comment I read here was that sometimes fishless cycling produces a lot of stringy brown algae and if you leave your plants and substrate until after that then you will have less tedious cleaning to do. You could then settle your plants and substrate at the time of the big water change at the end of cycling and let them get their start during that extra week you are supposed to wait while watching for late ammonia/nitrite spikes that sometimes occur.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[manwithnofish]

I just went through what you are starting...I'm about in week 5 or something. And as you know "hindsight is 20/20". I can say this qoute is really good advice.

IMO the best thing to do when you set up a tank is to buy a lot of cheap, bunched plants and put them in straight away. As the tank matures, start replacing them with better quality ones, including potted. If you do it this way round, you'll find out which plants do well in your tank early on without making expensive mistakes.

Also, what I did (after I did it all wrong) was this. I filled the tank to about 3 or 4 inches above the substrate, planted the plants (much easier to keep them down, clouds water less, easier to see spacing), and filled the tank. If you cloud the water too much in the planting process (like I did), you can vacuum easily to remove excess particles in the water then fill the tank and let is cycle.