# how to cycle an aquarium with plants?



## PaulThePlanter (Nov 17, 2009)

Okay, this is a very nooby question, but how should I cycle a brand spankin new tank with plants? What plants should I use? is there anything different I should do (other than testing ammonia, nitrites and nitrates and doing water changes)?


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## Shrimpo_Brian (Feb 12, 2013)

Doing it with only plants won't help with the cycle, let alone do anything about it. You have to first use some type of ammonia product to create nitrite, then nitrate. Using plants will help speed it up.


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## AirstoND (Jun 17, 2011)

Depends on how big your tank is?

Time and acclimation are your friend with this effort. Fish are the last consideration. Some plants: ludwigia repens, bacopa, wisteria, lilies.

If your plants are growing without extensive algae consider fish additions, but I would initially just add nerites/shrimp, if <10gal. 

>20gal consider a school of 6 fish.


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## PaulThePlanter (Nov 17, 2009)

how should I add the initial ammonia, with fish or dose it? It's a 5 gallon spec v


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## Shrimpo_Brian (Feb 12, 2013)

You can add pure ammonia found in hardware stores, or yes, you can add fish to cycle your tank. If you do choose fish, get hardy types such as guppies.


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## gus6464 (Dec 19, 2011)

Alternatively you can use Amazonia as your substrate. It will put all the ammonia you could ever want to cycle the tank. Plus it will grow plants great.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk 2


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## caykuu (Jul 30, 2011)

If you do cycle with fish, get black skirt tetras (they're super hardy) or a few of those 50 cent feeder fish... they're super cheap, but I'm not sure how long they'll last.


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## Hoppy (Dec 24, 2005)

Cycling a tank will happen whether you want it to or not, whether you add ammonia or not. As soon as you add a fish to the tank you will have some ammonia from the fish waste products. The bacteria that convert ammonia to nitrites, then to nitrates, exists on the aquatic plants you will put in the tank, in very small colonies. As more ammonia starts to build up in the water, that provides the food needed for the tiny bacteria colonies to expand into equilibrium with the ammonia supply. But, the growing plants will also be consuming the ammonia as a nitrogen source, so the build-up of ammonia will be slow. Add more fish and you have a bigger supply of ammonia, causing the bacteria colonies to grow even more and faster. And, the plants will continue to use the ammonia.

If you choose to add ammonia from the store to the water, you will build up a bigger bacteria colony faster, but as soon as you stop feeding it with ammonia, it will shrink back to equilibrium with the smaller supply of ammonia.

The "secret" is to add only a few fish at first, so the colony can build up gradually. Then add a few more to build it up even more, then more fish, etc. While doing that the plants will be helping eliminate the ammonia, and getting a good growth start.

The point is that the cycling process occurs naturally and is self regulating. Problems occur when you dump a lot of fish in the tank at one time, and/or have few plants in the tank.


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## THE V (Nov 17, 2011)

Since you've now managed to confuse the OP let's put in some more accurate facts. Some tn

Fishless cycling is the a method that allows for the full stocking of the tank after it is completed. In a planted tank the plants generally use up most of the nitrogen. It is however a good idea to build up a healthy bacterial colony as well. A heavy pruning and rescape cause a mini-cycle. 

Fish-in cycles can be done but commonly leads to damaged gills or death of the fish. Pushing "cheap" feeder fish for cycling is a great way for the petstore to make more money to treat the inevitable disease that they bring into the tank. 

If you already have a established tank by "seeding" the new tank with the old filter the cycle process will only take a few days. The nitrifying bacteria double in number every 24 hours. Once they are established they also can withstand very long periods of starvation. I've cycled a new tank in 3 days from a filter that had been wet but unused for over a year.

Otherwise the process for a fishless cycle is exactly the same for a planted or unplanted tank. Dose up to 4-5ppm of ammonia and wait until the ammonia is gone. Then dose again until it only takes 1 day to disappear. The difference is instead of being converted to Nitrite & Nitrate the plants will eat it up a good portion of it.

Bacteria are also commonly introduced with the new plants in pretty significant numbers. This means that even if starting from a brand new tank the cycling process will generally take less than a week.


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