best way to cycle a planted tank?

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slvrcvc

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May 16, 2004
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in about a couple weeks I'm going to get my lighting and floruite and emperor 400 for my 40gal planted tank

I'm also getting a plant kit online from petsolutions.com
I'll also have some flourish available to add CO2 to the tank if needed to help the stem plants get established quickly.
I also have a 10gal cycled tank that I could pull some water from when doing water changes but I will only get at the max 6 gal from it to add to the 40 gal if needed, just because i dont think i could store more than that in buckets before the bacteria die off.

what is the best way to cycle a planted tank? plants first or establish bio-filter first?
 
If you plant heavily from the beginning, using a lot of fast growing stem plants, there really is no cycling time. When I started my 40 gal planted tank I stocked it with enough plants to fill a 55 gal tank. I never measured more than traces of ammonia and nitrite, and by end of the first week both were at 0. It never experienced any type of spiking at any time after adding fish (the beauty of having lots of plants to soak up the ammonia).

I started off using Flourish Excel, then added two Hagen Plant-Gro CO2 generators. I had good plant growth, but after a month moved to a pressurized CO2 system, at which time I moved the Hagen bottles to a 29 gal tank.

As for using your 10 gal tank as a starter, you'd be better off using some of its gravel or filter media as the water contains very little bacteria. A lot of people will start a new filter on an established tank before addding it to a new tank so you may want to consider getting the filter earlier to give it a headstart. The plants you add will also provide a good amount of bacteria to start your bio filter.
 
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