newbie, advice/comments appreciated :)

Originally Posted by JDM

Do be careful with the plant idea of making the cycle un-important. The quantity of plants is a VERY subjective thing as I thought I had a heavily planted tank. I added 12 1" fish and had a nitrite spike indicating that the tank still cycled. I worked out why but haven't posted anything on it yet. Suffice it to say that plants keeping the ammonia levels low, near unmeasurable, does not negate the fact that nitrosomona bacteria will still develop to produce nitrite which is not as readily absorbed by the plants due to the constant, although low, levels of ammonia. The low levels of ammonia (compared to the pure ammonia cycle method) do allow the nitrospira (the current version) bacteria to grow quicker and earlier which keeps the second stage more manageable but it still needs to be monitored for sensitive fish.

At least the plants can mitigate a "crash", which also seems to be a misunderstood process.

Minimum plant load for the truest silent cycle would be at least 1 fast growing stem or medium sized surface plant for every gallon of water. I had 30-40 plants in a 37 gallon tank and it wasn't quite enough to eliminate the cycle.... so instead of a silent cycle, I had a "quiet" cycle. I didn't have ALL fast growers though, that was my problem.

If you are going to fishless cycle with a low plant load then you are probably better off but if you are adding pure ammonia, don't get it too high or it will kill the plants and extend the cycle time. 1ppm or less constantly will serve you better than the listed 4ppm and it will also reduce the time for the cycle to complete. Others may disagree (probably everyone) but I bet none have actually worked out the math of the cycle.

Jeff.

Originally Posted by yellowbrickroad

Thanks Jeff, I agree I need to have a bit of a rethink to make sure I'm picking fish that will be happy. I really like the Black Widow Tetra and Flame Tetra, but I'm not sure how easily I be able to source them. Cherry Barb could be good, I wrongly assumed they were aggresive. I also see a lot of the livebearers like hard water so I could go that way instead. The only thing I'm really set on is having cories, so I'm open to changing my other plans. I'm thinking bronze corydora now, or a mix or bronze and the albino variety.

Lou

Originally Posted by yellowbrickroad

Thanks for that :) I don't feel confident enough at this stage to have a heavily planted tank instead of fishless cycling with ammonia, although I like the idea of doing that one day. So my plan is to have some live plants to make it a nicer environment and hopefully reduce my nitrates a bit as my tap water is quite high, but I'm also having silk plants. Eventually I'll go fully live but I just want to learn slowly. I'm fishless cycling with ammonia at 4ppm but I don't have any live plants in there yet, I'm planning to get those when I'm cycled and then keep bringing it to 1pmm until I have my fish.

Lou

Originally Posted by JDM

Don't get too hung up on the plants eating nitrates, they don't use nitrate efficiently and you will most likely need to rely on water changes to keep it in check.

Jeff.

Originally Posted by yellowbrickroad

My corncern with that is that my tap water has highish nitrates :/ Although when I test my cycling tank they have lowered, but I don't know why. But I see Cherry Barbs can cope with higher nitrates so they may be the way to go.

Your Emerald Catfish is really cute, I definitely haven't discounted them :) it's just that i've seen bronze and albino corys for sale where I am but haven't seen these yet.

Lou

Originally Posted by Byron

Where did you see this [the last sentence]?

All fish are sensitive to any of the three aquatic forms of nitrogen, be it ammonia, nitrite or nitrate. The latter is less toxic than the first two, at low levels and short-term. But the higher the level of nitrate and the longer the fish is exposed, the more damage is done.

What is the nitrate level in the tap water? There are methods to deal with this, but let's see the number first. Live plants do help somewhat, but this is long-term; the initial influx of nitrate at the water change has to be considered.

Byron.

Originally Posted by JDM

"Water parameters before starting cycling were ph 7.2, GH 16, and my nitrates in my tap water were pretty high, about 30-40 :/ they've dropped a lot now in the tank, don't really understand why? But I plan to have live plants so I hope that will help any nitrate issues, and if not I've bought a thing to attach to the taps to remove nitrates."

Just being helpful.

Jeff.

Originally Posted by Byron

Thanks, missed that. I have a habit of going through my list of threads one by one when I first log on, and often I only check the latter posts subsequent to my last post. I do miss things sometimes.

If the nitrates really are at 30ppm (or higher) in the tap water,this should be dealt with. AbbeysDad has this issue and has explained his method in a couple of threads. Good advice.

Byron.