Is MyTank Fully Cycled?

[C'Man]

I've been doing a fishless cycle in my new "river tank." It is a 55 gallon tank, but has only 20 gallons of water. The rest of the space is for land plants and animals. The filter is an XL biobag powered by a power head that lifts the water from the bottom pool to the top pool. The water passes through the biobag on the way up.

The cycle has progressed classically in just over two weeks. The nitrites spiked after five days. The ammonia (5ppm) was consumed daily after a total of nine days. The nitrites started to decrease after thirteen days and went to zero after 15 days. Nitrites have been zero for two days now. That seems like complete cycling to me. But the nitrates are only 5ppm. Is that anything to worry about? I thought they should be much higher than that. I did the complete water change anyway. Am I ready for fish now?

Thanks for any input.

 

[OrionGirl]

If plants have access to the water (roots, ect), then they will start using the nitrogen that's available in ammonia and nitrates. Could be why you haven't had a large spike with them.

 

[spottedcatfish]

I agree, it's likely your plants using the nitrates. If you can put in 5ppm of ammonia and have 0 ammonia and 0 nitrites at the end of the day, it sounds to me like you're cycled and ready to go!

Question, can we have a pic or drawing of your set up? It sounds really interesting, but I'm having trouble visualizing it.

What do you plan to keep in there?

 

[NJ Devils Fan]

Yea, I would also like to see a pic of it.

 

[C'Man]

Thanks for the opinions. Now that you mention it, I'm sure the plants are the answer. I'll get fish and animals tonight.

For fish I plan to keep small tetras, danios, loaches and platties.

I have various underwater plants. A couple of them are wisteria and amazon sword. But I forget the names of the others. I just bought potted ones to help the cycling of the tank. They are all doing well so far.

For land plants I have a couple of vines (creeping Charlie and creeping Jenny), a couple of ferns, African violets, polka dot plant, shamrocks, and baby tears. I removed all of the dirt from the roots and the roots are in water from the system. So they are growing hydroponically. Again so far so good with these. They have been in the tank for a few days to two weeks.

The animals I plan to start with are tree frog, house ghecko and an anole. I may add a couple more later on.

Here is the URL of a web site with pictures and a description of the system:

http://www.geocities.com/river_tank/riverTankText.html

 

[Cearbhaill]

That's one of the more interesting ideas I've seen, C'Man.... thanks for the inspiration!
What's next?
(Chamaedorea palms, tillandsia, and orchids, maybe?)

 

[NJ Devils Fan]

Wow, thats awesome. good job

 

[spottedcatfish]

Wow, that's a nice setup, good luck with it!

 

[Hebdizzle]

Thats a great looking tank. My Science teacher had one similar to it in 8th grade, however he had the tank completely full and had a cool extension that was build off of it. I like how you have the different depths of water, that really adds to the overall appeal of the tank. Good luck with it!

 

[C'Man]

Thanks for the comments, but I need to make sure you know that the tank in the link from my earlier post is not my tank. It, the web site and the article accompanying it belong to another individual. I just linked to it to show what this type of tank looks like. Mine is the same size and design, but is still in the early growing stage. I only hope that mine looks that good in the near future.

I added fish and animals to my river tank last night. The animals (fire belly toad, gold tree frog, green anole and house ghecko) have been inactive for the most part. But the fish (7 lemon tetras, 6 rasboras, 4 cory cats 2 platties and 2 small plecostomus) have been very active trying to swim upstream to get to the higher pools. It's great fun watching them try differing tactics to get there. Several of them made it to the third level. But so far only two have made it all the way to the top pool. And a few seem content to remain in the lower pool. This is one of the most enjoyable aquariums I've ever set up. There are several levels (literally and figuratively) of activity to monitor and enjoy.