Planted Tank Aquarium Cycling

This guide breaks down aquarium cycling into a few key steps.

Planted tank aquarium cycling. I have a 20 gal tank with plastic plants and decor all aquarium safe the tank has a lid and is on heater filter air pump and substrate is spectrastone nutmeg small river gravel. Now i m trying to cycle my new tank that has live plants. Much of the cycling process is automated. However more sensitive plants such as utricularia gramminifolia and tissue culture plants in general should only be planted after the tank is cycled they melt easily in fresh soil.

In the past any product that claimed to instantly cycle a tank was just so much snake oil. With the use of starter bacteria products cycling time can be shortened to a week plus. Cycling only requires patience and consistent testing of the aquarium water. In fact according to microbiologist diana walstad aquatic plants consume nitrogen waste even more effectively than bacteria.

I ve done a fishless cycle in the past by dosing pure ammonia into the tank and not changing the water and it worked great. Before cycling you will need to ensure you have a proper freshwater test kit. This method is a waste of time for a planted tank. With the method described here you can forget about adding ammonia flake food raw prawns etc.

Creating a planted tank helps you to understand the chemistry within the water that allows the plants to grow and flourish if presented with the right environment. The ph in my tank is 8 at this point and i just added the ammonia and brought the tank to 2ppm. It s for fish tanks. Cycling is the most important part of setting up your new tank.

Steps to starting your planted aquarium. Hello everyone i am currently cycling my 20g tank with live plants. There is a better and quicker way to start your planted aquarium such that ammonia and nitrite remain completely silent because they don t spike at all. With planted aquariums if a few measures are taken there is no need for fishless cycling.

I have used bio spira and it works as claimed. Cycling the planted tank. There are hundreds of types of plants that encompass different requirements colours and sizes. I want to do a fishless cycle obviously but i hear that when you add plants to a tank.