80 Gallon Planted Freshwater Aquarium - Fishless Cycling - My First Attempt
- Thread starter malaybiswas
- Start date
After reading your first post it is easy to see why you have such a beautiful tank. Your attention to detail and ability to plan ahead have really paid off!
Nice work!
Nice work!
Thank you guys for the appreciation and encouragement. I have posted some of the pictures in the photo gallery already. Waiting for the new layout to bloom further before I post the new pictures
There is another point you seem to be missing in all of this. The whole point, the reason for cycling a tank in the first place it to avoid spikes of ammonia, nitrate and nitrite which can affect the health of the fish, right?
Plants feed on ammonium and nitrate. The plants themselves compete with nitrogenous bacteria. In a healthy plant tank with good light and C02 like yours you would NEVER NEVER NEVER have any measurable amounts of ammonium, nitrate or nitrite cycle or no cycle. So why bother? If you started the plants immediately and waited for them to start growing, you could then add fish and never cycle at all PERIOD!
You have a gorgeous looking tank. Great carpet foreground.
Plants feed on ammonium and nitrate. The plants themselves compete with nitrogenous bacteria. In a healthy plant tank with good light and C02 like yours you would NEVER NEVER NEVER have any measurable amounts of ammonium, nitrate or nitrite cycle or no cycle. So why bother? If you started the plants immediately and waited for them to start growing, you could then add fish and never cycle at all PERIOD!
You have a gorgeous looking tank. Great carpet foreground.
True. But two reasons why I did not try that
1. This was my first attempt for a planted tank. Since I did not have much experience with using only plants as my "filter" did not feel comfortable trying that.
2. I guess I was in a hurry too to complete the nitrogen cycle. Using plants only, would have taken longer than it did for me in this way.
I have 2 more planted tank setups in plan in the next few months. May be then
Planted tanks skip the nitrogen cycle entirely. If you plant heavily from the start you could have your tank fully stocked in a couple of weeks. Add lots of plants, spend a week or two to make sure they are healthy and growing, add full load of fish or break it up a couple of weeks if you want to be extra safe.
No, they do not because there's no NH4 to begin with.
None, zero, zip, even with a 5000$ spect at the lab, there's no measurable NH4 even down to 10 parts per Billion which is the general low range for anything a hobbyists might ever hope to measure. While I am a hobbyists, I also do research and have access to many let's say, high grade research equipment and am familiar with most standard methods in water analysis.
Plants nab it all and convert it directly into proteins.
Plant roots are also loaded with bacteria. I wait a couple of days and then add things like SAE's and later after a week, Amano shrimp.
I've never measured any NH4, it's used as fast as it produced.
Folks that have done FC often get green blooms and I see these post over and over again.
NH4 in the tank itself(Why?), do it in a bucket, or run the bacteria media in an established tank first, do the basic work first, like water changes to remove any waste build up, you still are left with NO3 at the end and that's not going anywhere, but with plants, that too is also removed.
You can use algae or plants for any type of aquarium to filter things and remove any waste in any type of aquarium, not just planted tanks, reefs, marine fish only, fish only FW etc.
I like to grow plants, not bacteria. Nothing wrong with bacteria as back up, but the focus should be on the plants, not testing NH4 cycling and spending a lot of time with test kits for several weeks.
Then the proponents suggest that new folks should "learn" and tell them they should "test". I'm not so sure that they really should.
Maybe folks trying to push test kits and sales are behind this? hehe
I have to wonder many times, who got into this hobby to play with water test kits?
I've yet to meet a single person to date. Did you?
I do enough testing here at work, I really do not want to come home and do it again when I know the processes involved in aquatic ecosystem cycling. The issue I have is that this FC method does nothing to export the NO3 and NH4, the habits aquarist need are simpler than all this, do a water change, add plants, take consistent care the of the tank etc. FC does not address that. Instead, it gets into a lot of detail, test kits etc. Most folks do better if they get into this hobby doing the more obvious things that are part of the routine. Otherwise they stress out, get lost in the readings, spend a lot of time learning about all that and do not focus on things like the plants. Maybe some folks do and want to learn everything right away......most do not however.
Basic ecosystem and aquarium care. That goes farther for any aquarium than the start up phase. Any aquarist can do well for the first few weeks.........
Question is, can they do well over time and stay in the hobby? What will determine that?
Not FC.............
See how many GW blooms folks have had here due to this FC.............
Regards,
Tom Barr
