Switching plants during cycle?

B

biffba

AC Members
Jan 24, 2006
19
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0
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
I'm 15 days into my new aquarium. I've been getting ammonia & nitrite reading for about 5 days now. Anyway, this is my question......I recently found out that some of the plants I selected for my tank require high light & I only have about 1.25 wpg. I'm new to aquariums and didn't know much about which plants required what lighting & such until I learned some on here recently. I have 5 plants thus far in a 31.3 gallon aquarium, 2 of which aren't doing too well & are dying off as they need more light, 1 other that is hanging in there but not flourishing. I was thinking of pulling them and replacing them with something else, and maybe add 1 or 2 more. Will doing this while I'm in the midst of establishing a cycle hurt anything or throw anything off? And if not, are there any plants you would recommend? Below are my latest water readings. I'm about to do a water change to lower that ammonia.

Temp 75*F
Ammonia .25mg/l
Nitrites .25mg/l (close in color to .30 level, but not quite there)
Nitrates color was between 5 - 10
PH Value 8.0
Chelated Iron .20
GH 15
KH 8
Phosphates 0 - 0.1
 
Removing unhealty plants will be beneficial, as decaying plants contribute to the waste load rathere than reducing it. I would suggest adding hardy stem plants during the maturation of the tank - floating tropical hornwort or anacharis, particularly - and changing over to plants of more interest and aquascaping possibilities after the tank is mature.

At such low light you are going to be restricted to the lower light slower growing plants. But you need not be overly concered with that until the tank is stabilized.
 
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