Do plants need cycled water?

[warr0088]

Hi all,

I finally have a 90gal tank decorated and ready to fill with water, and wanted to know if plants could be put in right away before the cycling process.  I have a coralife 4x 65watt fixture over-top of the tank, if that makes any difference .... I'm thinking of grassy-type plants, vals, crypts, anubias, rotala, java moss, etc ...



Thanks!

[charlie]

Hi all,

I finally have a 90gal tank decorated and ready to fill with water, and wanted to know if plants could be put in right away before the cycling process.  I have a coralife 4x 65watt fixture over-top of the tank, if that makes any difference .... I'm thinking of grassy-type plants, vals, crypts, anubias, rotala, java moss, etc ...



Thanks!

Yep go ahead & stock the plants now , as much as you find, even the ones you don't want, when the tank is matured & the plants are growing then you can worry about aquascaping & getting rid /sell the ones you don't want. Here is a link to a article that explains cycling a planted tank.Good Luck

http://www.rexgrigg.com/cycle.htm

BTW , how are you planning to feed the plants in that tank?

[Vizerdrix]

Great article Charlie!

[warr0088]

Awesome!  I'll throw plants in right away ....

by "feeding the plants" i'm assuming you are reffering to CO2 ... I was hoping to get away without it, by just adding ferts and lots of fish ...

I'm really not sure what to expect from those lights! (Tank dimensions are 24x18x48)




Chris

[Toss]

With that lighting ... for sure algae, especially without CO2. You need a lots of plants to compete with algae. If you can turn on just half the light, do that in the beginning. It is easier to prevent algae then trying to get rid of them.

[warr0088]

Yes it does have two switches, I can definately moderate the lighting conditions .... guess I'll see what happens .....

out of curiosity though, why would algae grow without CO2, but not so much when there is CO2?  Essentially, it is a plant too correct?  So why would it grow moreso than the other plants without the Co2?

[Toss]

The simple version, algae is less complicated creature compare to plants. With that much of lights, plants need more CO2 to "cook"/consume/photosinthesis the nutrient in the water. Algae can use whatever available in the water column. They are way smaller than plants. Algae grows on plant leaves, which reduces the amount of light the plant gets. When you cut the leaves to get rid of algae, you weaken the plants even more...and so on... and so on.

[dan2x38]

Nice and simple explanation Toss...

Warr0088 is you want I got a crap load of hornwort you can have. It is great when setting up a tank for sure. It grows instantly. You should do a little online research for fast growers then come to the meeting. The mini-auction always offers lots of plants cheap.

[charlie]

Awesome!  I'll throw plants in right away ....

by "feeding the plants" i'm assuming you are reffering to CO2 ... I was hoping to get away without it, by just adding ferts and lots of fish ...

I'm really not sure what to expect from those lights! (Tank dimensions are 24x18x48)




Chris

I would strongly suggest , you take some time & go through that site  i provided, it gives you the ABC of planted tanks & is pretty accurate, having a good read will set you up for a enjoyable experience with planted tanks.
Regards

[kennyman]

Really nice to see this technique getting the attention it deserves 

[MikeM]

I'm right in the middle of doing this with my 110G.  It's 30x18x48, and using the same Coralife fixture.  I would definitely suggest only running one set of lights at the beginning.  I ran both banks right after I planted it for 8 hours a day, and got hit with green water.  When they say "heavily planted" they mean heavily planted. After lots of trimming in my other tanks, I basically filled the 110 with hygro and moneywort.  Once I got rid of the green water and only ran the 1 bank, I had no problem with algae other than a little diatom bloom.  Now I've added a 2 hour noon burst of the second bank, no algae bloom yet, and I might consider expanding it to 4 hours in a couple of weeks.  The plants are a little leggy near the substrate, but I'm attributing that to the depth of the tank.  I'm hoping the noon burst will help this, as giving hygro a haircut doesn't look like it's going to be a lot of fun, especially since I can hardy reach the bottom of the tank 

I think deciding on a CO2 strategy from the get-go will make a big difference, too.  I had my CO2 injection set up from when I first planted it, and tried to get the level stable as quickly as possible.  I didn't fertilize for the first two weeks.  I would probably start earlier than that next time around, simply because when I started fertilizing, conservatively, the plants started to really take off.  I've tried to be very consistent with this tank, and make only one small change at a time.  There are tons of different strategies for adding ferts.  I chose Tom Barr's EI method, because I don't mind water changes, but I'm lousy at reading test kits.

I decided to wait a month before adding fish, so I'll be starting to think about stocking some time this week, but the month with the plants growing and no fish has actually been great from an aquascaping point of view.  It's so easy to re-arrange things right now, without worrying about freaking out the fish, so I've been able to get the aquascape just the way I want it.

On a related note:  I was very surprised during the last month, to see the tank show a nitrite spike.  It wasn't as large as the one you would see in a ordinary household ammonia fishless cycle, but it still peaked up to about 1 ppm before settling back down.  Does anyone know why this would happen?  I know the odd leaf breaking down, and the poop from the snail armada would add some ammonia, but wouldn't the plants eat it up before the bacteria got a chance to have a go at it?  It cycled away in a day or two, but it does argue for waiting a couple of weeks after planting before adding fish.

[Toss]

It could be from your tap if you did water change prior. Other than that, it could be excessive dead leaves that the snails might consume
This is an example of heavily planted tank ..56k beware

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[warr0088]

good info everyone, thanks ...

at least if I don't decide to go with CO2 I can still use half of the light ... lol .... I guess it'll be some trial and error on my part, see what I can / can't do without the CO2 first!

[dan2x38]

Instead of CO2 you can use Seachem Excel. Some plants do not react well to it though... sorry I forget someone else can remind me...?

[charlie]

Instead of CO2 you can use Seachem Excel. Some plants do not react well to it though... sorry I forget someone else can remind me...?

Vallisnera is one that does not do well, but useing excell on a 90 gallon  will cost you a wack load of money.

[dan2x38]

Yes I forgot this was a 90g... tall tank too be tough to judge the light needed it will be trail and error at first for sure...